


Shouldn't Have Said A Thing

by AileenJones



Series: Because I Said It [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Depressed John, M/M, POV John Egbert, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2013-12-02
Packaged: 2018-01-03 05:53:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 28,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1066734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AileenJones/pseuds/AileenJones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humanstuck. John has just professed something to one of his dearest friends and it didn't go well. In fact it went very poorly. He is at an all time low and he's beginning to think he's not worth it. Sadstuck. Self harm, bullying. Further warnings inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hello all! I just wanted to inform you all of some potential triggers:
> 
> \- Self Harm
> 
> \- Bullying
> 
> \- Attempted Suicide
> 
> But all in all that should be the extent of all the damage, I may add more as time passes!
> 
> (I also apologize in advance for the horrible tone shifts, this is my first time writing in present second person)
> 
> I hope you enjoy! I do not own Homestuck or any of the Hussmaster's characters!

Your name is John Egbert and boy are you stupid.

You've lived in this small Washington town for as long as you could remember; same small house, same small diner, same small gas station, same small school. This is a town where everyone knew everyone. And you have no doubt in your mind that you have just made the biggest fool of yourself and that by the week, everyone would know. And it's Friday.

You realize that you probably should have thought this through. How could you have been so stupid? You had jumped into a situation, and you were going to pay the price for it, no matter how harsh it may be.

The scene replayed over and over again in your head...

"WHAT? YOU THINK THAT I'D-... WHAT?" he gave you a look that made your stomach twist with regret and disappointment.

You couldn't say anything... You hadn't thought he would take it like that. Upon reflection, you don't really know how you expected him to take it...

At the moment, you are sitting next to the dumpster behind the cafeteria, the wind pushing you up against the rusted metal and sending the tears that leak out of your eyes flying. You don't fight it. You hold your knees to your chest. You feel the cold wind rush past your bare legs as your already too short jeans hike up even farther, exposing your pale flesh. Every now and then, you see some of your classmates pass by you. Almost all of them give you dirty looks, word travels fast around here.

Every time someone passes, every time someone gives you that look, it makes you feel even more worthless, makes the tears come faster.

You are a wreck.

You are always a wreck.

You know you shouldn't think like this, but you do.

Why couldn't you just think? Why couldn't you stop thinking?

You continue to let the tears fall.

After what felt like ages of sitting and moping, you press your face into your bony knees.  _Come on, John_ , you say to yourself, _You are strong, you are strong, you are strong._

You finally get the tears to stop, all the while chanting to yourself,  _you are strong, you are strong, you are strong._

You pick up your blue backpack and sling the tearing straps over your shoulders, _you are strong, you are strong._

You wipe the remaining tears out from your eyes and try to recover what dignity you have left,  _you are strong, you are strong, you are strong._

You begin the walk home since you missed the bus, kicking at rocks as you go,  _you are strong, you are strong._

The clouds begin to form as you pass by the only auto shop in a twenty mile radius, _you are strong, you are strong._

You hike up the collar of your jacket to protect against the battering wind which attempts to knock you over, _you are strong, you are strong, you are strong._

You look up at the sky when you feel a cold drop hit your face, _you are strong, you are strong, you are strong_.

Suddenly and with virtually no warning, water pours from the sky in sheets and you instantly regret not bringing an umbrella,  _you are strong, you are strong, you are strong._

With the rain soaking you to the core and the wind both pounding you and making the water freeze you, you feel even worse, _but you are strong, you are strong._

You then rush to get home, feeling completely drained when you see your front door, you need to convince yourself that you are strong.

But you don't think you've ever told yourself a bigger lie.

* * *

You sneeze as you walk through the entryway of your three bedroom two bath home that is slowly wearing away with time. The walls are all white with a few family photos scattered around. The paint is beginning to chip in places and there is mold in others. All the pictures that hang lazily from their places have a thin coating of dust on them except for the ones that contain the image of a beautiful young woman with long dark hair holding a young child. You smile sadly at the one that hangs right next to the doorframe. You readjust your bag on your shoulder and continue on to the living room.

You pause for a moment to observe the state of the space. There is a fireplace nestled into the north wall of the house. It is built with extremely old brick, of which your dad says once belonged to your great great grandfather, but you doubt that highly. Sitting on the mantle of the ancient relic is another item that makes you sad whenever you see it. It is your Nanna's urn. You didn't know her very well, but whenever you see it, you think of the time right after she was gone and he'd just look at it for what felt like ages with this destroyed look on his face. Recalling it brings back some of the emotions you were feeling earlier and you try to quell them before you break down again.

Continuing around the room, you see a shelving unit propped up against the north wall that holds various... objects that you do your very best to avoid on a daily basis. You look to your left and you see the old, moth hole ridden sofa that is another "family heirloom," although apparently not that important because it had an upturned cake sitting on one of the cushions. This was not a good sign.

You walk over to the closed kitchen door and press your ear against the light wood. You can't hear anything. You sniff. There it is. The smell of cake is overpowering and you know that means dad is in one of his moods. You can feel the bad feelings bubbling up inside of you again as the thought of your dad's current state invades your thoughts. You think that it's high time you get up to your room and turn and walk as swiftly as you can up to your room without making a sound.

Once you reach your room, you feel the emotions that have been coming at you from every direction all day hit you like a semi truck. You go to your bed and throw yourself to the mercy of your signature Ghostbusters sheets. They seem to be the only thing giving you any comfort these days. You fight to hold the tears back and you fail miserably. They slide shamefully down your face as you attempt only halfheartedly to smother yourself with your pillow. You feel like you've been run over by a steam roller and you can't seem to scrape yourself off the floor.

It is only the vibrating you feel in your pocket that manages to get you to acknowledge the world around you. You awkwardly roll over, still hiccuping from all the crying and tears still streaming down your face, and dig the periodically buzzing cell phone from out of your pocket. You look at the screen and see that it's a text from your cousin Jade. You can't help but feel a little better at the sight of your favorite cousin's message. Your actual relationship with her is a little hard to follow. Your Nanna and her Grandpa were brother and sister, making your parents cousins and you and Jade second cousins? But that doesn't matter to you, you and Jade are so close that she is practically your sister.

You open her text history and see a long strand of messages that you haven't received.

jadeHarley [JH] began texting johnEgbert [JE] at 5:01

JH: john!

JH: hey john!

JH: jooooohhhhnnn!

JH: where aaaaaarreee yoooou!

JH: JOHN!

JE: hey there jade

JH: there you are! i was beginning to worry that you'd never pick up! :)

JE: why's that?

JH: cause you haven't answered me all day! :(

JE: i was at school!

JH: that's no excuse :)

JE: ...

JE: fine

JH: yay!

JE: so what was it you wanted to talk to me about?

JH: oh right! i wanted to tell you about a new im app i found!

JE: really?

JH: yeah!

JE: that's cool i guess

JH: ...

JH: do you want to hear about it

JE: uh

JH: well its probably not that great anyway, i just thought it was cool and i thought i'd let you know about it! :)

JE: thanks jade

JH: sure no problem :)

JE: so what's it called then?

JH: pesterchum. i can send you a link if you want...?

JE: sure i'll take a look at it

JH: yay! oh! and when you install it, my username is gardenGnostic

JH: . ?37333-PESTERCHUM-3-14-1-New-Pesterchum-(6-26-3-41 -8eta-pg54)

JE: sweet, i'll check it out

JH: awesome!

JH: i've got to go...  _he's_ home...

JE: oh, good luck jade!

JH: thanks...

You look at the phone and hesitate for a moment. Then you scold yourself for being ridiculous and click on it. It doesn't take all that long before you have the application downloaded and you are staring at the line where it asks you to choose your username. You think about it for a moment before you notice your sheets. And then you think about the only good part of your day, the only part of the day where you don't feel like you are a complete and utter screw up, biology class. The name then becomes clear to you and you are almost stunned by how proud you are of coming up with such a name and then scold yourself for being lame. You type in the name ectoBiologist.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hi there!
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this one. I'm a little proud of it... but, well, yeah. :)
> 
> And thank you all so much for the comments! It makes me happy inside!

Your name is John Egbert and you are positive that this isn't going to be a good day.

You walk onto the campus the next Monday in your favorite hoodie and immediately feel the stares. Your weekend had been spent with little to no interaction with the outside world. You barely left your room and when you did, you tried your best to avoid any contact with your dad. The only person you had talked to was Jade over that new app she sent you, which you found out was pretty decent. When Sunday evening had rolled around, you had considered not going to school the next day in an attempt to avoid embarrassment, but you didn't want to make your dad nervous, so here you are. You feel your classmates' eyes on you, but when you look up at them, they are staring at the person in front of them, not talking, not moving. Just looking. An eerie silence is draped over the halls wherever you go. You walk by classrooms with open doors and see the teachers sitting at their desks, pens in hand, blissfully unaware.

You pass by a group of boys who don't try to hide the fact that they are staring at you and you feel that that is worse. You pass them by, but you can still feel their eyes. Then you hear footsteps behind you and fear strikes you swiftly.

_What if they try to hurt me?_  You think to yourself. You try to tell yourself that you'll be okay, there are teachers around, they wouldn't try anything. At least, it  _sounds_  like something reasonable.

You reach your locker and you notice that they have stopped following you. You look over your shoulder and see that they are still there, not staring at you anymore, just talking amongst themselves. You do see a few of them glance your way periodically and it makes you nervous about what they want. You hesitantly fiddle with the lock and your hands are shaking so much that you have to start over again. Once you finally get it to open, you find a wrapped box sitting there with a turquoise bow sitting on top. You grab it and shake it a little. You don't hear a noise from inside. You look back inside your locker to see if you can find any hint of who had left it for you and see an envelope. You grab it and place the box back inside where you had found it and tear the envelope open. You happen to glance back at the group that had followed you and you notice that more of them are beginning to throw looks your way and some of them were outright staring. You get a bad feeling.

You open the letter nervously and see that there is just a folded piece of binder paper inside. You slide the note out of its shelter and open it slowly, noticing the turquoise color of the lettering that matches the bow perfectly. You look at the letter and read it.

Egbert,

For when you wisen up a little.

Love, V :)

This confuses you more than a little as you place the letter next to the package. You reach for the package and hold it in you hands for a moment.  _Why would someone send me a package?_  You ask yourself,  _if it's related to yesterday... then maybe I don't want to know._

You stare at the package for a few more moments as you debate on whether you should open it. Eventually, curiosity gets the better of you and you tug on one of the corners of the bow. You are about to dig into the wrapping, but the harsh tone of the bell forces you to place it back inside in amongst the disorganized mess of books and papers and close the door, slamming the lock back into place. You walk down the hall and glance at the group of people who were following you earlier. You notice the disappointed looks on some of their faces, and that almost makes you want to turn around and throw the package in the garbage.

As you pass them, you hear them talking. You hear them say your name many times along with a few choice words. You pick up your pace as you grow more uncomfortable with their whispering. You continue to accelerate until you are nearly running down the halls. You almost run into a few of your classmates who shout angry comments at you as you continue on to class. You finally reach the door you're looking for and slowly open it.

The smell of the biology classroom hits you like a ton of bricks as you enter and you have to blink a few times to clear the tears away like every morning. You attempt to make it to your seat as quickly and quietly as possible, trying to draw as little attention to yourself as possible, but of course you fail. Not seeing the foot of one of your classmates jut out in front of you, you run into it with full force. You flail your arms in a wild attempt to keep upright and you nearly knock over the skeleton model that hangs solemnly from his post. The classroom erupts with laughter and you can feel your face turn a bright pink color as you turn your head down and make your way to your seat, ignoring the names the other students taunted you with.

You sit down next to your lab partner who barely acknowledges your presence, he is completely absorbed in his phone as usual. You try to look straight ahead with your head held high, but the taunts your classmates are whispering at you...

Their whispering and your thoughts are interrupted by Mr. Johnson' cacophonous voice shouting, "Alright everybody, settle down, settle down," it takes a moment for everyone to acknowledge his call for attention, but when he has it, he continues.

"Today we will be continuing with the lab we began yesterday," he threw a look at someone over my shoulder, "because of the delay yesterday," he straightened his glasses and I hear a deep rumble as the cause of this "delay" fondly recalled the events of yesterday, "we will be finishing today. Any unfinished work will have to be made up at lunch or after school," he pauses for the moans of the students who know that they will not finish during the period. He then continues, "Now if you would all please pull out your data tables, we may begin."

The rest of the period, when viewed from outside , appears quite normal, with the addition of an extremely clumsy boy thrown into the usual lab routines. But you are fully aware that every single person in that room, except maybe the teacher and your lab partner, is trying to trip you in one form or another and most of them succeed. Needless to say, the class period goes terribly and on top of it all, you get hardly any work done. You nearly break a beaker on multiple occasions which grants you questioning looks from your teacher. You do your best to avoid his eyes as much as possible, focusing on the placement of your feet and the task at hand.

Somehow, you survive the period, though you leave without that satisfying high that comes from a job well done, something you typically only can find after your biology class, and head to english.

The rest of the morning consists of mostly the same happenstances. People yelling at you in the halls, getting shoved into a locker during passing period, people whispering insults to you during class. You never get the satisfaction of your peers getting caught in the act, only a, "No yelling in the halls," or, "Please be quiet," when the teachers heard them talking in class. You muddle through the first four periods in a sort of haze, not really absorbing what your classmates are saying, but also neglecting your duties as a student since you are not paying attention during class either.

During lunch, you sit alone. And boy, you've never felt more alone in your life. The cafeteria is almost completely silent with only the hushed whispering coming from a few of the groups in the cafeteria. The tension sits in the air like butter as you sit at a table in the corner of the room with your back to the rest of the room. At one point, you hear silent laughter come from the table adjacent yours and you get a bad feeling. Almost instantly, you feel something hit the back of your head. You instinctively reach back to feel what it is and you can't say you're surprise to pull away your hand and see some strange combination of refried beans and rice that can no doubt be found in one of the burritos that the school system decided to feed you all today. You sigh inwardly.

You stand up and try to avoid contact with any living creatures. Taking your lunch tray with you, you leave the cafeteria with the sound of laughter on your heels and head straight for the bathroom. Once you arrive, you set your tray down on the floor, finding no other, more elevated, surfaces that are big enough, and turn the sink on. You grab a paper towel from the dispenser and soak it. You proceed to clean out the mess in your hair as well as you can manage. You try to clear your head of the hurt and embarrassment,  _you are strong_ , as you work; you are not really successful.

When you are satisfied that you won't find any dried bits of bean or rice in your hair later, you look over at your tray and decide to leave it there, your appetite ruined. You then realize you have to go back to the cafeteria to pick up your bag anyway, which you left like the idiot you are, and decide that you might as well take it with you. You grab the tray and head back to the cafeteria. Once you enter, you notice that bell must have already rung because the room was clear and the janitors and kitchen staff were busy cleaning up. You hastily throw your food in the trash, set down the tray and hastily go to your bag. You notice a note sitting on top of it and you take it in your hand.

Why are they treating you like this? What had you done? But you know the answer to that and it makes you hate what you had done all the more, hate how idiotic you had been, makes you hate yourse-

No.

You will not think this way.

You are stronger than this. A better person than this.

And, hey, kids are assholes. You are sure that this will blow over in a few days when they get tired of you or someone does something even more interesting.

It will all blow over...

With this new-found reassurance, you crumple up the note and throw it in the trash as you head out for the class that you are already extremely late for with your bag over your shoulder.

You pass through the rest of the day with your head held high. You still receive insults and people still try to trip you, but you take comfort in the fact that once they get it out of their system, they'll stop. You make it through the day with little upsets, cleared mind giving you a little time to think about something important.

_He's_  not here today.

You would say he was sick, but you had never known him to even have a runny nose. So why wouldn't he be here? It was you who was the pariah, not him. It wasn't even his fault that all this was happening. Someone had just overheard what you two were talking about...

Despite the questions, you can't say that you're not slightly relieved. You aren't sure you're ready to face him just yet. The day moves on.

When the final bell rings, you throw your books into your bag and sling it over your shoulder. It makes a satisfying thump against your shoulders as you prepare to leave. Then you remember something. That package is still in your locker. Based on how the day has gone, you are not entirely sure that you should open it, but you had decided this morning that you would; plus you can't deny that you are more than a little curious.

You make your way to your locker, getting shoved a little as you go, nearly tripping a few times, and when you get there, you unlock your lock and swing the small metal door with chipped paint open and grab the package. You can feel eyes on you, but you don't acknowledge them. You reach for the paper and tear it off, revealing a clean, white box the size of your hand. You slowly, hesitantly, lift the lid of the box and stare at its contents with pure shock.

Somehow, you pull yourself out of the emotion and walk over to the nearest trash can, leaving your locker unattended for a moment, and throw the entire box away. You then walk back over to your locker and grab the note, slamming the door closed once your hand was safely out of the way and completely ignore the fact that you need books from there. You open the letter and read the oddly colored lines again.

Egbert,

For when you wisen up a little.

Love, V :)

Eventually, all you can see is

For when you wisen up a little.

And suddenly, it makes sense to you, because in the package, in that cursed box, there had been

A package of razors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Yeah....
> 
> Yeah, I think I'm just going to post the whole thing...
> 
> -AJ3


	3. Chapter 3

Your name is John Egbert and you are noticing how tired you have grown.

It has been almost a week since you found that first box. The first box, anyway...

You recall the day you found it...

_You stare at the note for who knows how much longer and you feel the wall you had put up earlier crumble at the edges. It's getting to you. It's getting to you. You have to get out. You slam your locker closed, forgetting the things that you needed to exchange and run down the hall for the second time that day. You hear the laughs of your peers as you run by._

_"You up to it, Egbert?" you hear one of them call, "You got the balls to do what needs doing?"_

_You feel the crawling forcing their way out of your eyelids as you run out the front entrance of the school and into the damp and chilly air. You run and run and run, not caring that you have missed the bus, not caring that it was raining again. Just not caring anymore. But you care about this more than anything even though you know you shouldn't._

_You finally stop running when you are about a mile away from your house and your breathing is coming to you in short gasps. Your throat is nearly sealed and you can feel the panic rise in you as you try to steady yourself. You set your backpack on the water logged sidewalk and hastily retrieve your inhaler. You begin to breathe again, slowly but surely, you begin to breathe. You stand there for a moment, in the rain, with your bag on the ground and you let the rain fall. Oh boy, do you let it fall. Your arms are finally noticing the icy rain that assaults you every chance it gets and there is an almost welcome sting as it splatters over your exposed flesh. You lift your face up to the sky and let the rain pound you and beat you and you know you have it coming. You know you deserve it. You feel the warmth of your tears streak from your eyes and mix with the cold tears that the sky cries and you can't feel their warmth anymore. You can't even feel the warmth of your tears anymore. Since when were you denied even that comfort?_

_Eventually, you can't handle your own weight anymore and you fall to the ground, your head resting against your bag. You just lay there, not caring if anyone sees you, not caring that the icy rain is soaking you to your core, not caring that the numbness is brings to you makes you feel better. You sit there and you think. You think and you think and you think and you think and, god, you wish you would just stop. You think about your dad and how he never seems to stop baking, never stopping, never stopping. And how you can't seem to catch a break on anything anymore._

_You wish things would go back to the way they were a year ago. Where warmth was all you felt._

_With rain and tear stained clothes, you stand up and brush the muddied gravel from your back as much as you can and pick up your bag from the sidewalk. You look back over your shoulder, back over to where you came running from and then look ahead to the place you didn't want to go. You want more than anything at that moment to just stay there. To be able to just sit there, in the rain, with nothing but yourself and your thoughts. But you know that you can't and you walk toward the place you are supposed to call "home."_

_The walk back to your house is a long one and you begin to feel an ache in your legs when you take the last few steps down the driveway, up the porch and through the front door. When you enter, you see your dad's raincoat on the coatrack and your stomach drops a little. You do not want to have to talk to him right now. You take off your shirt, which is dripping with water, and wring it out outside as best as you can. You come back in and remove your shoes, placing them beside your father's and placing your backpack next to those. You walk into the living room and hope that he's not there._

_For once, your luck plays out. You can smell cake coming from the kitchen and you hurry upstairs before he gets the chance to come out and talk to you. You head straight for the bathroom and lock the door behind you. You know you probably don't have to worry about your dad walking in on you just to ask why you weren't home on time, but you don't want to risk it. You strip as quickly as you can, the cold water against your skin isn't as comforting as it was a half an hour ago, and hop in the scalding hot temperature of your shower. You stay there until the water runs cold._

That was last Monday.

It's been over a week since that first day and the whole situation has done nothing but get worse. You continually try to avoid all the battering of their insults and threats, but your thick skin is wearing thin. If you even had thick skin to begin with.

The next day seemed to be worse...

_You walk onto campus with a stiff upper lip and a lowered chin. You sense that there are people around you, but you are looking at the ground where you can't even see people's feet because they are giving you a lot of space. More space than you are comfortable with. You adjust the strap on your backpack to try to cover up your nerves; it doesn't help at all. You continue down the hall, feeling the piercing eyes and dodging the "misplaced" feet. You reach your locker and you pray to whatever power is listening that there isn't something out of the ordinary in there. You open the door and of course there would be another box._

_You grab the note first..._

_Egbert,_

_It's not nice to throw away a gift._

_Love, V_

_You curse silently to yourself as you grab the box from its place and throw it in the trash again, not caring to open it because you know it will do nothing but make you feel worse about yourself. Once it makes a satisfying thud against the walls of the bin, you head back over to your locker and pretend that nothing's wrong. But of course you know that everything is._

The second day had gone by as slowly as the first had. Maybe even worse. The harassments that you suffered had been ramped up to yelling and more vicious shoving. You couldn't keep that up for long and you knew it.

But what were you going to do?

So here you are, pressing forward, trying to make sense of it all. Your dad, your classmates, the "presents"...

_Him._

Ah yes, Him. He hadn't come to school for three days since the weekend. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. But he was there Thursday. And in those three days, you had time to think about how you were going to broach the subject. That gave you a bigger headache than anything...

_You close your locker and hear a noise coming from somewhere down the hall. It sounds like a stack of books or something hit the ground. A silent, "SHIT," follows it. You instinctively turn your head and who you see makes your eyes widen, makes your breathing catch, makes your palms sweat slightly._

_He is back._

_You automatically turn your attention back to your locker. You are panicking slightly because you don't know what to do. You harden your resolve. This needs to be done and you are going to do it whether you want to or not._

_You grab the books you need for your next class and slam the locker shut. You start walking toward where He is still picking up his books. He looks up for just a moment and sees you striding toward him. He finishes picking his books up quickly and has them stuffed in his bag in a flash, no doubt trying to avoid you. He begins walking away, but you won't have any of that._

_"Karkat!" you shout down the hall after him. He freezes in place, his chance for a subtle escape gone. He turns around slowly and waits for you to approach, a defeated look on his face. You attempt to keep yours placid as you take the last few steps toward him, "We need to talk," you finish._

_"Oh, you think?"he whispers harshly at you. You cringe inwardly at his harsh tone, but you remember almost instantly that this is how he always speaks. To anyone._

_"Hey, man, don't be like that. I don't need this right now," you shift your weight subtly._

_"Oh and you think that I do?" he looks around for a moment to see if anyone is watching. You know automatically that there is and when he realizes this, he grabs your arm to pull you to a deserted classroom. You follow him without prompting, knowing that this isn't the time to goof off with your-_

_"Okay, what the fuck?" he asks as he turns on you when the door closes. You throw him an accused look, "Oh, don't give me that look!"_

_"So what look should I give you then? Hm?" you ask, growing slightly angry, "Do you have any idea how hard I've had it these past few days? Do you?"_

_"No," his resolve cracks slightly and he glances down at his toes, "No, man. Look, it's just... you popped something pretty big on me Friday and I just can't ignore it. I can't just pretend it didn't happen."_

_"I'm not asking you to do that, Karkat! I just want-" you search for what to say, "I just want us to still be friends, man." He looks you in the eyes for a moment. Neither of you move. You just stand there and listen to your classmates outside pass by the room unawares._

_"I don't know what to do," Karkat says, rubbing the back of his neck and turning away from you, "It's like, I don't even know how to act around you anymore. And it's not like..."_

_"What?"_

_"It's not like..." he hesitates, "It's not like I'm going to be around that much longer anyway..."_

_That takes you by surprise, worrying you slightly, "What does that even mean?"_

_"I was gone the last few days, right?"_

_You grow slightly suspicious, "I just thought you were avoiding me," you state, turning your head down slightly._

_"Yeah, I can see that... but I wasn't actually skipping. Me and my family were checking out the house we're going to be living in. My dad got transferred and we're moving this weekend..." he trailed off. We sat there in silence for a moment._

_"Wow," you say after a few seconds; it had felt like years, "Where are you going?"_

_"Texas," you sit in uncomfortable silence for another moment._

_"That's... really far away..." you look down at your hands._

_"Yeah, it is," you look up when you feel his eyes on you. You see him looking at you, like you had predicted, but his eyes are sad. It almost looks like he's about to cry, but you know for a fact that Karkat Vantas wouldn't let another human see tears run down his face._

_"I don't blame you," you say._

_"What?" he asks you in sincere confusion._

_"I don't blame you for what those assholes are doing to me."_

_The look in his eyes tells you that you're on the same page, "Well why not? I was kind of the one who was shouting all over the place. I fucked up big time and it's- it's..." he couldn't finish, "Man, I just don't want those asshats out there fucking you up."_

_"Karkat, this isn't your fault. If it's anyone's fault, it's mine for not talking to you in private about it."_

_"Oh, no. You are not blaming yourself for this, John."_

_"Why not? Those people out there seem to think that I'm a freak and a moron..."_

_"John, look. You know what? It's their fault. Theirs. Not yours. Not mine. Granted, I reacted really bad. But they're the ones who are treating you like something the cat dragged in, right?" he looks at you for confirmation. You nod at him because you can see the frustration burning there. It doesn't stop._

_"Alright!"_

_"Are you sure you get it."_

_"Yes, I'm sure!"_

_"Cause I don't believe you."_

_"Karkat!"_

_He keeps staring at you, but it's not laced with frustration anymore. He almost looks... relieved? "Fine, I believe you," he states. He then surprises you as he walks over and wraps his arm around your waist. His shorter stature allows you to embrace him around his shoulders, his face pressed into his chest. You cherish the hug while it lasts and when he finally pulls away, your eyes are pricking with more tears. He looks up at you and his eyes are misty as well._

_"You'll always be my best bro," he says, placing his hands on your shoulders, "nothing's gonna change it. I just wish that I could stay here and help with-"_

_"Karkat," you interrupt, you can tell that this irritates him, "I don't want you to worry about me. I'll be fine, I promise. I've got and iron resolve."_

_He gives you a half laugh, "That's bullshit and both of us know it."_

_You don't reply as both of you exit the room._

That conversation hadn't gone how you had expected it to go, but then again, you were planning on him being a complete jackass like he typically is, so it was a nice surprise when he didn't start yelling. You feel that it probably went as well as it possibly could have and that's reassuring.

You hear a loud beep coming from the laptop sitting at the foot of your bed. You silently shake yourself out of your stupor and lift your head off the pillow. Reaching sleepily for the computer, you rub the sleep out of your eye and let out a long yawn. Once you have the laptop on and sitting in front of you, you open up the Pesterchum app that is flashing on your desktop and see that Jade is pestering you.

gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 20:36

GG: john!

GG: hey john!

EB: hey jade!

EB: what's going on?

GG: i just wanted to check in and see how everything is going

GG: i know you had a bad day yesterday :(

EB: im doing better actually

GG: really?

GG: thats great!

GG: hey

GG: have you ever tried randomly pestering someone?

EB: you can do that?

GG: ...

GG: ill take that as a no...

GG: well anyway!

GG: i did and i met this really cool guy and i thought that he reminded me of you

GG: so i think you should become friends! :)

EB: uh jade?

EB: are you sure he's safe?

GG: what do you mean?

EB: well you met the guy on the internet

EB: that doesn't sound all that reliable to me...

GG: oh! i see what you mean.

GG: i skyped with him a while ago

GG: i think hes a pretty cool dude though and weve grown to be pretty good friends

GG: i just think you should meet him so that maybe we can all be friends! :)

EB: well...

EB: okay... i guess

EB: whats his name?

GG: his name is dave strider and his chumhandle is turntechGodhead.

EB: alright

EB: ill talk to him

GG: yay!

GG: ive actually got to go

GG: ill talk to you later john!

gardenGnostic [GG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 21:04

EB: bye jade

ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 21:05

ectoBiologist [EB] began pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 21:11

EB: so

EB: how's it going over there?

TG: so i guess youre john then?

EB: wow

EB: yeah

EB: i guess jade told me about you?

TG: more like wont shut up about you

TG: the amount of words that come out of that girl's mouth about you is unreal

TG: like if i randomly picked words from what she's talked about

TG: wed get some pretty sick raps up in here

TG: so sick

EB: i dont doubt it

TG: so like

TG: youre jades brother and stuff

EB: cousing actually

EB: but its not hard to mistake

EB: she pretty much is a sister to me

TG: i hope its the good kind of sister

TG: cause trust me

TG: the bad kind sucks

TG: like not even ironic

EB: alright?

EB: you have a sister then?

TG: yeah

TG: but she gets pretty annoying sometimes

TG: wont even listen to my raps

EB: you rap?

TG: yeah, bro

TG: did you not just hear me go on a tangent about jades words being turned into a work of art?

EB: i do remember now

TG: yeah you do

EB: ...

TG: you wanna hear one?

EB: uh sure I guess

Dave then proceeds to throw together line after line after line of some "sick" rap he had written a while ago about orange soda not actually being that ironic. You patiently wait for him to finish.

EB: wow

EB: that WAS pretty sick

TG: i know

TG: you cant get more ironic than that

TG: there is just no way

EB: haha

EB: yeah i dont think i could ever do something like that

TG: thats just because youre not a strider

EB: haha i guess :B

TG: damn it

TG: bro wants to strife again

TG: fuck it

TG: hate to cut this short egbert

TG: but i got to go kick some supervising ass

EB: ?

TG: later

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 22:08

EB: you fight with your bro?

EB: okay then

ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 22:08

You stare at the screen for a few more moments, trying to grasp exactly what just happened. You look at the clock on your computer and see that it reads 10:10. You haven't been able to stay up this late since last Friday. You look back at your computer screen. Dave Strider, huh?

You close your laptop and set it on your bedside table. You turn out the lights and think about your life. You can't help but glance at the backpack which contains the notes. All of them. Every single one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for all your support guys!
> 
> And if you could get me some feedback on grammar, writing style, whatever, that would be great! Thank you!


	4. Chapter 4

Your name is John Egbert and you are falling.

_You stretch out your hands in front of you and prepare for the impact of the pavement against your hands. You dip your knee down in hopes that it will break your momentum, even a little bit. When you come down, the force of the landing it too much for your hands and knee to handle and your head hits pavement, stunning you for a moment. Then you remember why you had tripped in the first place. Startled, you roll over and face who had knocked you down, feeling your jaw where he had punched you._

_He's staring down at you, "Don't try it again," he growls._

_You try to whimper out an apology, anything to get the larger boy to stop yelling, to stop drawing attention to you._

_"What was that?" he says, leaning down to pull you up a few inches by your shirt front, "I couldn't hear you."_

_"S-Sorry," you mumble at him, it's all you can manage with the shock settling over you from being punched._

_"Not good enough, Egbert, not good enough," he shoves you back to the ground and you can feel your head smack against the walkway again. He walks away with a posse following him and a girl with long, dark, feathered hair on his arm. She glances back at you with a smirk as you lie there with an aching head._

_After a few moments of recuperation, you sit up and rub your head. You look after them for a second before turning to look for your glasses. They are lying a few feet away from you and you scrape yourself off the walkway. You dust yourself off, pick up you things, slip your glasses back on your face, and walk away as if nothing had happened. For the umpteenth time that day, you readjust the strap on your backpack and head to class._

It's been over a month since that incident. That was the first time someone punched you. You don't remember it fondly. You aren't even sure if that's exactly how everything happened, either. It was happening so often these days; every situation seemed to blur together. You were pretty sure that you had been speaking with a member of his posse when he hit you. You hadn't even initiated the conversation. He had been asking you a question about the biology homework that had been assigned; you had just been glad someone was talking to you of their own free will. That was when a fist came out of nowhere and struck you so hard that your glasses flew off and you fell. It had shocked you to say the least.

And like you said, that was only the first time.

There had been times after that, "Don't fucking talk to her, Egbert," "Keep your hands to yourself," "Why are you still here?" Yes, there had been many. You never said anything, though. You always, always, got up, brushed yourself off, played it off as "all's good,"  _if_  someone asked. But you know that all isn't good.

And the razors. Those are the worst part. Every day, a new box. Every day, a new note. Every day, new trash. But you never throw away the notes. Never. You don't know why you keep them, they don't do any good. But you guess that they make you feel... well... you don't know how the oddly colored letters make you feel, but you know that it's different than how you feel when your classmates taunt you. Blessed difference. It's not necessarily a good difference, though.

There is always only one part of your day that makes you feel remotely better than how you typically feel. That's when you talk to Dave. You mean, talking to Jade is great and all, but she's on the other side of the world on a secluded island and she doesn't get some of the "modern" references you make. Sometimes it's just that when he raps at you and he says something ridiculous, oops, you mean "genius," you can't help but smile a little. This is something you cherish. Sometimes its the only thing the keeps you from taking that box home with you.

You hear a ping come from your computer and sit up groggily, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. You grab your laptop and look at the clock in the corner. You had been sleeping for almost three hours. You feel you should be concerned with how much time you spend sleeping, but you can't bring yourself to care anymore.

You look at the pesterchum app and see that Dave is pestering you. You open the log and see that he must have been wanting to talk to you for a while.

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 18:19

TG: john

TG: hey john

TG: john

TG: not cool to leave your bro hangin'

TG: i know youre online

TG: john

TG: johnyboy

TG: dont make me quote the shit we read in school

TG: you know i hate that

TG: fine

TG: i see how it is

TG: strider cant seem to catch a break here

TG: and i thought we were bros

TG: shame on you

EB: geez dave!

EB: how long have you been pestering me?

TG: about an hour

EB: desperate much?

TG: nah man not desperate

TG: ironic

EB: oh i see

EB: i have been enlightened

EB: striders aren't desperate

EB: they wait for people ironically

TG: damn straight

TG: and dont let your egbertian head forget it

TG: damn

TG: what kind of name is egbert anyway?

EB: uh... my name?

TG: but like

TG: its like the sesame street breakfast special

EB: what?

TG: really though

TG: you got bert

TG: with some eggs on the side

TG: come to think of it you probably taste weird

EB: alrighty then

EB: my family now consists of dusty puppets and eggs

EB: yum

TG: yeah man

TG: now youre getting it

EB: and whats up with strider anyway?

TG: dont go there man

EB: do you just stride everywhere?

TG: not cool

EB: or do you just have REALLY long legs or something

TG: you know what man?

EB: what :B

TG: fuck you

EB: anytime you like

TG: you sure man?

TG: cause i dont think you could handle all the strider up in here

EB: haha

TG: no joke man

EB: haha :B okay then

TG: but seriously though man

TG: theres this new guy at my school

TG: and dude

TG: hes weird

TG: we were talking about your name being weird

TG: his is like crazy

EB: really?

EB: what is it?

TG: karlkit vanmas

TG: or some shit like that

EB: ...

EB: karkat vantas?

TG: that was it

TG: weird right

EB: uh yeah

TG: and hes so little

TG: he comes up to like

TG: he doesnt even come up to my chest

EB: yeah

EB: dave?

TG: what is it?

EB: karkat is kinda my best friend

EB: was

EB: i dont know

TG: wait

TG: i think i remember you talking about him before

TG: what do you mean was?

EB: well he kinda moved away...

TG: so...

TG: does he have a pesterchum account?

EB: well yeah but

TG: then what is it?

EB: something happened between us and

EB: well

EB: its complicated

TG: spill

EB: no

TG: why not?

TG: we're bros right?

EB: yeah

TG: then why cant i know

EB: cause its not something that you just say dave

EB: its more complicated than that

TG: i just want you to know that i have a rap ready for this

TG: and i know that you absolutely love my raps

EB: you know i do

TG: tell me

EB: no

TG: tell me

EB: NO!

TG: jeez egbert

TG: who's got your panties in a wad

EB: i dont know what your talking about

TG: i am not doing this again egbert

TG: somethings wrong

TG: im your bro

TG: no question

TG: you are going to tell me

EB: dave

EB: i know youre concerned

EB: but really im fine

EB: my head hurts like a bitch

EB: but im fine

TG: okay

TG: whats up with you

EB: what?

TG: youve been acting weird all week

TG: and its not ironic

TG: so just tell me whats up

EB: nothing

EB: you woke me up and im a little grumpy

TG: bullshit

TG: i do that all the time

TG: thats no excuse

TG: whats going on

EB: does it really matter?

TG: obviously

TG: why is this such a big deal?

EB: ...

TG: well?

EB: im not ready to tell you

TG: aw man come on

EB: im serious dave

EB: ill tell you when im ready

EB: but not yet

EB: the last person i told flipped out and it hurt bad

EB: i promise i will tell you

EB: but not right now

TG: oh

EB: yeah

TG: im sorry

TG: im a shitty friend

TG: my friend terezi keeps telling me

TG: i suck at listening

EB: dont say that dave

EB: at least you care :B

TG: i dont care

TG: i am stoic as fuck

TG: its ironic

EB: yeah sure you are

EB: so then

EB: what was her name again?

EB: terezi?

TG: its not like that dude

EB: good

TG: what?

TG: why?

EB: cant have you with some girl with a weird name

TG: oh my god

EB: that just wouldnt work

TG: stop

EB: i mean

EB: terezi strider?

TG: john

EB: no that cant happen

TG: oh my god john

EB: yes?

TG: what have you done?

EB: a thing

TG: oh my god

EB: a very very bad thing

TG: wow

TG: that was a thing that just happened

TG: like fuckin bro and his orange soda thing

TG: i dont even

EB: alright

EB: id like to move forward now

TG: i agree

TG: so why is your head hurting?

EB: oh no real reason

EB: i just

EB: fell

TG: wow egbert

EB: there's a bruise

TG: youve got some mad derping skills

TG: like

TG: i dont even know what

TG: thats just how derpy you are

TG: they should call you egderp

EB: dave no

TG: yes

TG: that is what im calling you now

EB: dave

TG: i knight thee sir egderp of derpton

EB: what are you doing

TG: located in downtown middle of nowhere

EB: dave

TG: in the fucking cold ass weather

EB: stahp

TG: what

TG: i think its a very

TG: whats the word im looking for

EB: ironic? :B

TG: no

TG: definitely not that

EB: ...

TG: eh

TG: ill let you know when i think of it

EB: oh well then

EB: ...

EB: damn it

EB: i dont even have a good comeback

TG: you know you shouldnt even try

EB: yeah i know...

TG: shit man

TG: i gotta go

TG: bro wants to "bond"

TG: my ass

EB: aw man

EB: that not cool

TG: but its apparently ironic

TG: ill talk to you later

EB: see ya dave

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 22:24

You fell? Really? You scold yourself and look down at the clock.

A little over three hours. That's how long you've been talking with him. You can't help it. Time keeps getting away from you. You close the app and it is only when you see your reflection in the shiny screen of the mirror that you realize that you've been smiling. You hold onto the feeling for as long as you can.

You realize you have a lot of homework to do so you get up and walk over to your almost completely upturned backpack lying on the floor. Thinking its zipper is shut, you grab it by its front with the intent of throwing it onto your bed in a very casual manner, but its zipper is not in fact sealed and you send all the binders and papers in there flying around your room. You curse yourself profusely for your ignorance and bend over to clean up. That's when you look at the teal writing for the first time that evening.

You pick up the card and open it.

_Egbert,_

_For when you wisen up a little._

_Love, V :)_

Your first letter. You feel almost attached the the false words. You feel like you go back to the memory of finding this card more often than the others. You set it to the side of you as you pick up another.

_Egbert,_

_You know it'd just be easier to give in._

_Love, V_

This was one you had received three weeks ago. You grab another.

_Egbert,_

_Come on, be a pal._

_Love, V_

And another.

_Egbert,_

_You know no one wants you here._

_Love, V_

And another.

_Egbert,_

_I knew you were a coward._

_Love, V_

And another.

_Egbert,_

_It only takes one slice._

_Love, V_

You can't take it anymore. You grab all the cards you have collected and fling them across the room. The sound of shifting paper fills the room and the whispers of their harsh yet gentle words can be heard in every crackle. They look like snow as they fall back to the floor, creating an odd sort of peace. You inhale slowly, trying to calm your rapid breathing and let it out with a sigh. Why wouldn't it stop? Why wouldn't they just leave you alone?

You pick up the cards again and feel the burn of every single letter as though the paper were made of razors.

And it comforts you.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone!
> 
> Wow I'm so sorry for the lack of plot development in this chapter. It's ridiculous.
> 
> Whelp!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay plot developments!

Your name is John Egbert and you are wiping the tear off the screen of your laptop.

Once it is gone, you stare straight ahead, your hips swivelling with the desk chair you're sitting in. You are crushed. Reduced to dust. You don't know what to do anymore. You can't seem to breath right. The air is going in and out of your lungs, in, out, in, out, but you don't seem to be absorbing it. You feel yourself beginning to panic. Your breathing comes more rapidly.

In

Out

In

Out

In

Out

In

Out

In Out In Out In Out

InOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOut InOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOut InOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOutInOut InOutInOutInOutInOutInOut

You place your head in your hands and try to calm yourself. You can not break down, you've been doing so well. Not now. Not ever are you going to break down.

Once you slow your breathing down a little and the tears aren't coming out so quickly, you open up the log that set you off and scroll to the top. You know it will only make you more upset, but you figure you deserve it at this point, if you could seem so...

You look at your screen and see that Jade is pestering you. You can't just ignore her, not even if you are a mess. She would be upset and probably yell at you next time you saw her. You sigh and click on the tab.

gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 19:57

GG: john!

GG: :)

EB: hey there harley

EB: how's it goin'?

GG: i'm doing pretty well

GG: ...

GG: how are you?

EB: i'm doing alright, i guess.

GG: are you sure?

EB: yeah

EB: why?

GG: no reason

GG: i was just talking with dave and

EB: no

EB: i am not going there jade,

EB: i do not want to talk about it right now.

GG: john...

EB: i just...

EB: i just need to think...

EB: things aren't all that great right now.

GG: well whats going on?

EB: ...

GG: my friend rose would say its good to talk it out

GG: at least

GG: i think thats what she'd say...

EB: i don't know, jade...

GG: you dont have to tell me now if you dont want to

GG: but were family

GG: and i want to help you :)

EB: ...

EB: thanks jade.

GG: youre welcome! :)

GG: i just want you to know that you can talk to me any time you like!

EB: okay.

EB: i've actually got to go do homework now

GG: oh!

GG: okay

GG: i guess well talk later?

EB: yeah

EB: we'll talk :)

GG: ill see ya later john

EB: bye jade

ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] at 20:20

You look at the screen and you can say that you feel mildly better that your cousin cares about you, even if you don't. You open your log with Dave again and begin to drag yourself back down into the pit.

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB] at 17:36

TG: john

TG: john

TG: john

TG: john

EB: dave.

TG: there you are man

TG: i was beginning to worry

EB: really?

TG: no

TG: seriously man youre so predictable

EB: ...

EB: well okay then?

TG: so whats going on in derpton?

EB: sigh

EB: nothing really

EB: like always

EB: shitty little derpton

TG: why are you still there

TG: actually though

TG: from what ive heard

TG: it sucks ass

TG: hardcore

EB: pretty much haha

TG: ive just had an idea

EB: …

EB: care to share?

TG: not really

TG: unless you pay the fine

EB: what?!

TG: fivethousand

TG: pay up

EB: !

TG: no takers?

TG: no one?

EB: dave!

EB: come on dave! i really want to know!

TG: well

TG: since your my bro i guess i can let this one slide

TG: you could move

TG: anywhere you want

TG: move closer to jade or someone else you care about

EB: ...

EB: are you insinuating that i move closer to you, dave?

TG: fuck no

EB: why? i thought we were bros!

TG: dude

TG: no

TG: i would never be able to find you at the airport

TG: youd be stuck there for years

TG: stumbling around like a ghost

TG: whered dave go? youd ask

TG: and no one would answer because who the fuck knows who dave strider is

TG: and then id finally find you years later and youll be a hobo

TG: and i can tell that youd make a pretty horrible hobo

EB: how would you even know?

EB: you don't even know what I look like!

TG: trust me

TG: i know

EB: ...

EB: dave

EB: i've just had a thought as well

TG: oh shit

TG: not a thought

TG: please not a thought

TG: i dont think i'll be able to handle it

EB: shut up

EB: i was just wondering why we've never skyped before

EB: ...

EB: dave?

EB: you there?

TG: yeah man sorry

TG: had to talk to rose for a sec

EB: that's cool

TG: yeah shes being a pain again

EB: dave

TG: shes just like

TG: you havent picked up your room for over a year you need to do it

EB: dave

TG: which is not true

TG: its only been about a year

EB: DAVE!

TG: what

EB: you're avoiding the subject again

TG: i dont know what youre talking about

EB: dont do this dave,

EB: we do this dance every time i bring up skyping.

EB: i just don't get it.

EB: i'd like to be able to talk to my best friend face to face.

TG: ...

TG: im your best friend?

EB: yes dave!

EB: you're my only friend...

TG: …

TG: im your only friend?

EB: is it repeat an egbert day today?

TG: john

TG: why dont you have any friends

EB: why? it doesn't matter.

TG: im allowed to be concerned.

TG: your my best bro and you dont have any friends

EB: im your best bro?

TG: oh god lets not start this again

TG: really dude

TG: is something going on over there?

EB: what would give you that impression?

TG: a lot of things actually

TG: none that we need to talk about right now

EB: yes i think we do

EB: …

EB: has karkat said anything to you?

TG: and what if he had?

EB: *sigh

EB: what did he say?

TG: …

EB: DAVE! i need to know

EB: you can't just keep this from me

TG: he said

TG: and i have no idea if hes right or not

TG: i have no idea how close you two were...

TG: but he said you were gay.

TG: …

TG: john my man

TG: cant just leave me hanging over here

TG: come on bro

You remember staring at the screen for a solid five minutes before you were snapped out of you reverie only to be met with a wall of red text begging for your attention.

TG: im gonna go buy a plane ticket john

TG: im gonna fly out to derpton, wa

TG: just to kick your ass for ignoring me

TG: im getting online now

TG: oh look

TG: theres the ticket button right there

TG: last chance john

TG: 3...

TG: ...2...

TG: ...1...

TG: alright john ill see you in a few hours

EB: dave what

EB: jesus

TG: took you long enough

EB: sorry i was responding to jade

TG: shes on vacation in the alps

TG: they dont get service dipshit

TG: dont avoid me

EB: …

TG: im just going to assume the worst if you dont say anything man

EB: …

EB: i've just come up with a compromise

EB: i'll tell you everything that's going on with me...

EB: over skype.

TG: …

TG: i dont need to know everything right now

TG: i can weasle it out of you later

TG: i just want to know if what karkat told me is true

EB: that's cheating

TG: i obviously do not give a single fuck

TG: tell me john

EB: i don't see why it matters!

TG: youre my bro john and id like to know if youre gay

TG: it seems like something you'd tell your bro

EB: i still dont see it dave

TG: come on egbert just tell me

TG: i even reverted back to the breakfast muppets

EB: no dave

TG: tell me

EB: NO DAVE!

TG: i can basically tell what it is at this point anyway

EB: YOU KNOW WHAT?

EB: FUCK IT!

EB: I'M GAY

EB: I LIKE GUYS

EB: NOT GIRLS

EB: THERE'S NOTHING I CAN DO ABOUT IT

EB: AND TRUST ME, I'VE TRIED

EB: AND IT GOT OUT AT MY SCHOOL AND I'M DOING MY BEST TO MAKE SURE MY DAD DOESN'T FIND OUT.

EB: AND I'M TRYING TO COPE WITH EVERYTHING AT ONCE AND PRESSURING ME DOES. NOT. HELP.

TG: …

EB: is that what you wanted to hear, dave?

EB: huh?

TG: wow john

EB: yeah i know

EB: so

EB: are you going to tell me why you won't skype, now?

TG: …

EB: cause i think i deserve at least that

TG: i know you do

TG: but i just

TG: i just cant

EB: fine

EB: whatever

TG: john

EB: i've gotta go

TG: wait man

EB: bye dave

ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG] at 19:32

You close the window again and sigh. You knew it would make you upset. You knew it wouldn't do you one lick of good. And what do you do? You read it... you're so stupid.

You get up from the computer and go you your window. You look up at the almost full moon for a moment before opening the window and sitting on the sill with your legs resting on the shingles of a protruding room on the first floor. You look at your feet for a while and you force yourself to stare off into space. You had realized a while ago that only this and sleep would provide you with an escape from the failure of a life you find yourself enduring. As your mind wanders, your eyes begin to drift down the shingles and takes the drop to the soft grass that runs along the side of your house. You begin to wonder what it would be like to fall from there. To just let yourself go and tumble to the ground. It wouldn't be high enough to kill you, but maybe the pain would make you feel better.

You snap yourself out of your trance and look down at your hands. You see a ring of red, nearly bruised, flesh around your right wrist from where your left was gripping and twisting. You look at it again and prod the slightly swollen skin. Where you touch turns white for a moment and then fades back to red, like a sunburn. You hadn't even realized you were gripping yourself so hard. All that you had felt was pressure, but it never seemed to be quite enough.

You feel tears in your eyes as you climb back inside. You stretch your cramped muscles and instantly regret it as pain shoots up your torso. You hiss in pain and lift up your shirt to inspect your injuries. You groan when you realize that none of the bruises have gone away. Your body is blotched with a sick tye dye of blacks and purples and a sickly yellow color in the case of the bruises that were trying to heal. You prod one of them and feel a flair of fire-like pain. You pull your shirt down with tears in your eyes and go to bed.

You stare at your wrist again and grip it with all your might


	6. Chapter 6

Your name is John Egbert and you are at your limit.

You stare straight ahead of you, not even pretending to pay attention to the teacher, not paying attention to the students who are finally quiet, finally quiet. You are completely absorbed with the silence. Your mind is numb, relief washing over you. Your conscious mind is drifting, ever so slowly, through your skull. You are a fluid, you are relaxed, you won't let drama cloud your thoughts. The remarks will not break the wall, no shattering, no chipping; your wall will remain intact. You drift on and on and on, your brain fully checked out. You don't quite know what you're feeling, but you know that it isn't pain, not anymore. But you know that it won't last; you know that the inevitable bell will ring and-

No. You will not think about that. Not right now. You are at peace. That one time of day where you actually feel like you can breathe. You aren't worrying about their stares, their reproachful attitudes when they weren't hurting you, emotionally or otherwise. The sound of rustling papers and backpacks being zipped closed fills the room and you mindlessly begin to pack your things feeling the world rush back to you as you slip your unopened binder into your bag and zip it closed. The bell rings and as you look up, you see that the classroom is essentially vacant except for the teacher, Mr. Nitram.

"Hey, John," he calls out to you as you are about to leave, "can I, uh, talk to you for a second?" Not wanting to disobey the timid teacher, you walk over to where he is seated behind his desk and stand before him. He looks up at you and sighs at the slowly fading bruise on your jaw that you had desperately tried to cover up. You had failed miserably, "Well, John," he says as he rolls his wheelchair out from behind his desk and folding his arms in his lap. You lean up against the nearest desk to you, feeling awkward about the significant height difference. You two examine each other for a moment, sizing each other up. You feel that this is the first time that you've actually gotten a good look at your history teacher, he is not all that imposing, attitude or otherwise, so it's easy to discount him. He is wearing an opened plaid button up shirt, underneath is a black t-shirt with the taurus zodiac symbol on it. This style is nowhere near uncommon for the man; in fact, it goes with his mohawk and single earring nicely.

"I'm... concerned about you."

"And why's that, sir?" you ask, trying your hardest to not panic in front of the man. Why was he worried about you?

"Shall I start with your grades?" he asks, setting the brake on his chair. He looks at you for a moment before continuing, "You have a D in my class, John. Now, I've looked at your records and you are not a D student. You've had straight A's all year. What happened?" you stare at the ground, not willing to look into his eyes. You had always thought Mr. Nitram was a good teacher, he was always kind, never singled anyone out, and made sure that everyone was learning. You wish you could handle yourself as well as him.

"I don't know, sir."

"You don't know?"

"No, I don't," he looks at you for another moment. You can feel his eyes prying at your lie and you squirm a little in discomfort with your eyes still glued to the floor.

"You know you can talk to me right, John? And that I'd listen?" he sounds oddly confident, so you know what he is saying isn't a lie.

"Yes, sir," you mumble lightly. He sighs.

"Well, I guess I can't keep you," you look up at him and he's gesturing toward the door, "Do you mind propping it open on the way out? It gets really stuffy in here."

"No problem," you say over your shoulder as you walk toward the exit. You can feel his eyes on you as you prop open his door and leave the wheelchair bound history teacher sitting by his desk with scrunched eyebrows. You can't help but entertain the possibility that he cares about you.

You brush the thought away immediately. Who actually cares about you? Not your peers, not your family, and certainly not your teachers. You rush down the hall with the full intention of walking home.

The walk to your locker had been a fast paced one. You heard you peers call you names as you ran by, "shit head," "douche bag," "faggot," they all pounded their way into your skull as you were walking down the hall, just minding your own business. You had done your best not to let their insults get to you, but you knew that you had holes in your mental wall, and there were always a few comments that managed to worm their way into your mind. You had pulled your bag up over your shoulder again and finished the walk to your locker.

As quickly as you could, feeling the stares of your peers, you had yanked your locker open, threw in what you didn't need and grabbed the books that you did. You looked at the freshly wrapped box that was sitting in your locker, this had been the second one you had received today. V seemed to want you to take the box really badly. You reached for the box for a moment, but you hesitated for a moment.

Why didn't you take them? Why shouldn't you? You couldn't even seem to remember why you systematically threw them away each day. Why you grabbed the note and stuffed it in your bag. Why you grabbed the box and threw it in the nearest trash can you could find. It all seemed pointless now. It's not like you were doing anything better to yourself. You purposefully kept yourself awake at night, drinking highly caffeinated beverages before bed and waking yourself up as you fell asleep, making yourself wallow in your own pathetic self-pity. You had also begun to wear wrist braces on both of your arms because you were sure you were suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. From that first day of grabbing your wrists and holding them so tightly that you had lost circulation, relishing in the pain, you would systematically tie a shoe lace around your wrist as tightly as you could. You felt strangely better when you forced yourself to make your arms throb with the pressure of your blood trying to force its way through your veins. And the ache it gave you afterward made it all the more effective. Not to mention all the letters that V ever sent you were sitting in a shoe box hidden under your bed right below where your head would lie. You could swear that you could hear their whispers in the early hours of the morning. Their gentle reminder empowered the brooding that you hated yourself for.

So what made taking the box home any worse?

It's not like you were planning on doing anything with the box. You didn't even want to open it. You just thought that maybe it would calm you if you were having a fit or something. You seemed to get those a lot and that's typically when the braces came off. You had made up your mind.

You had stuffed the letter into your bag like usual, but instead of taking the box to the trash can like you had always done without a second thought, you stuffed it into your already full backpack and slammed your locker with a thud. The hallway, you noticed, had grown unsettlingly quiet. You glanced over your shoulder and saw that there was hardly anyone left in the hallway and whoever was there was deathly quiet. So they had seen then. Good, maybe V would stop sending you packages.

You had turned immediately on your heel and started walking off campus when you heard footsteps behind you. You looked back and all you could think was Shit shit shit shit shit shit. It was that guy. They first guy who punched you. He was looking right at you with a face that was definitely did not say, "Hey, John. I was completely in the wrong, do you wanna be friends?" No, definitely not that. You had also noticed that he was also gaining on you a little. You whip your head back around and pick up your pace a little, doing your best not to draw attention to yourself. You had glanced back and noticed that he was now keeping pace with you, simply following, not chasing. It was slightly more unnerving, you had no idea what his thoughts were.

It's okay, John, you told yourself, he's probably going to catch the bus or something. Right? Right.

Except you knew for a fact that he drove a black Ford Fusion. You were screwed.

You had kept up a brisk pace all throughout the front parking lot of the school, dodging kids who were bustling about trying to get on their respective buses. You successfully made it through the swarm of students and looked back over you shoulder, slowing down slightly. You didn't see him. Good.

You released the breath you hadn't realized you had been holding and continued on down the road, trying to calm your racing heart.

That was a few minutes ago. You are finally calm from the escapade earlier and your breathing is normal. Although you are extremely confident that he isn't, and will probably never be, there, you make it a habit to throw glances over your shoulder to see if he or any of his posse are following you. You realize that this is probably a stupid and paranoid notion after a few moments because after another quick glance over your shoulder, you look back ahead of you and see a person standing along the side of the road. They are wearing a black coat and a dark hat, items that you know he hadn't been wearing, and you could see that they were facing you. That could mean anything, you tell yourself, just because they're looking this way doesn't mean that he's looking at you specifically. They're probably just waiting for someone. Yeah, waiting.

Sufficiently comforted, you feel the slight confidence you've managed to maintain show itself in your stride as you try to pass the person as quickly as humanly possible without running. As you draw nearer, you see that jacket he's wearing is signature for the varsity basketball players at your school. You also notice that he is in fact looking at you. You stop dead in your tracks about a hundred feet away from him. You look at him, not daring to move, and he looks at you with a smug grin on his face. It seems to contort his features slightly so that they become more grotesque than you would say they originally had been. You can feel yourself locking up as your body tries to think of a clever way to make itself look less threatening. Your head would probably be doing the same thing if it weren't for the flurry of various emotions rushing through your brain all at once. You initial reaction, much like earlier that day, had been: oh shit oh shit oh shit. But then you managed to partially talk yourself out of that flurry to replace it with thoughts like: you knew this was going to happen! Why didn't you take the bus you worthless piece of shit? You deserve everything that going to come at you now.

The two of you appear to be in a dead lock. You have no idea what in the world the other boy is waiting for. You obviously aren't going anywhere and he would probably be able to outrun you anyways even if you tried. But he hasn't moved a muscle since you first saw him. You hate this so much. It's one thing if you know what's going to happen. A completely different one if you don't.

You hear the faint sound of footsteps behind you and you turn your head without thinking to see who's coming. This was a very bad idea because as soon as you turned your head, you felt the blunt, yet sharp, impact of a fist on your cheek bone. The impact throws your head to the side and you have to work to regain your balance before you fall to the pavement and possibly hurting yourself even more than you were sure receive as it was. You have no intention of attempting to hide more damage than you have to.

You try to scramble to your feet, trying in vain to get in a more defensive position, but you are held on the cold ground as the sole of a sneaker presses into your back with more force than was necessary. You try to look over your shoulder, to see who your attacker is, although you have a pretty good idea, but his foot leaves your back for a moment and lightly presses your cheek back down to the pavement. Your head is now being held there by the shoe and you think you'd like it better if you attacker would just move his foot back to your spine. This give you a rare opportunity to gather your surroundings, however, and you look around, not at all pleased by what you see.

You are literally in the middle of nowhere in the middle of nowhere, as you're sure Dave would have put it... essentially, you are all alone and there is no one around who you can call for help.

You also see the other foot of the guy holding you down as well as other members of a posse. You recognize some of them from the first guy's group as well as his girlfriend. Shit.

"Hey there, faggot," the guy above you greets with an uncomfortably perky voice. He presses your face a little harder, squishing your cheeks together, and twists his foot with each word as he says, "Long. Time. No. See." You hear his posse chuckle. You try to say something to him, but your lips are smashed together and it comes out as a mumble. He lifts his foot up a little, "What was that, faggot?"

"Stop messing around and get this over with, I have homework," you actually didn't but you wanted to play it cool. You have no idea why. You just wanted to curl up under his boot and let him squash you, but some basic instinct inside of you wanted to fight back, no matter how small.

"Excuse me," pressing your face painfully hard again, "You don't get to tell me what to do. And to think I was going to give you a present," he gives a slightly maniacal laugh and a shiver runs down your spine with the sound of it. He laughs again at your obvious displeasure and his cronies join him. Except his girlfriend. His girlfriend is just smirking at you, completely aware that you have noticed her.

"Hey, Vriska, babe," he says, addressing the girl who didn't laugh, "Show him his present, would ya?" you can practically hear the smile in his voice.

Vriska opens up her shoulder bag and smiles at her boyfriend, "Sure thing," she is also grinning. You loath the thought of seeing what horrible thing they have in store for you. She reaches in the bag and pulls out a simple, blue t-shirt. From what you can see, it is well worn, well loved and maybe just a tad dirty, probably from Vriska's bag, and it looked strangely familiar... She unfolds the shirt and you see why you recognized it. It is one of yours.

It is the shirt that you had brought to school at the beginning of the year for gym class. It was a favorite of yours but it was beginning to wear thin with use. You couldn't really bear the thought of giving it up because of the... memories attached to it, and the only way your dad would let you keep it is if you used it for gym, so you had taken it to school the first opportunity you had. You can remember almost every detail of that shirt, the little tears, the faded lettering, the stains...

And now it was hanging here before you, the little wear holes ripped to more than three times their normal size and the letters crossed out with sharpee. The stains were still mostly there, though, although some of them were severed by the tears. The sight of your beloved shirt brings tears to your eyes and you strain to keep them behind your lids, trying to erase the image from your mind as you read the words that these horrible people had written all over the fabric.

I'm a faggot

I'm a faggot

I'm a faggot. I'm a faggot. I'm a faggot. I'm a faggot.

Over and over and over again. Big letters, small letters, different colored letters. It didn't matter, it was there, all over. Written in sharpee and, you noticed, fabric paint. You hadn't known they had taken your shirt, you hadn't known that they would do this to the shirt you found your-

He interrupts your thoughts, "What I don't understand is why the fuck you were using a shirt with blood stains on it," you can feel his eyes on you and he shifts his foot a little so that he can look into your eyes, "huh, faggot? You going to tell us what that's about?" You can't hold the tears back anymore and they fall out of your eyes in streams, though you aren't really crying; sobs don't even wrack your body. You just lay there, staring at your shirt in horror and listening to the harsh words coming from your torturer.

"Well, tell us," you hear another voice say from a distance away. The change in voice startles you a little and you look up into the harsh eyes of Vriska, a wide smirk on her face and a demolished treasure in her hands.

You look back at your shirt and speak slowly and quietly, your voice hoarse, "It's the shirt I found my mom in." There is a dead silence from the cronies; Vriska is still smirking at you.

He starts laughing harshly, "Really? And you still have it after all this time? That is creepy as fuck! What are you, some sort of emo faggot?" he lets out large guffaws and since their leader is laughing, the cronies join in. More tears slide down your face. He calls for silence, "What do you all think we should do now?" he pauses as he waits for an answer, he receives none but ravenous chuckling, "well, I don't know what you all think, but I believe we should give the boy his gift!" his posse gives a short cheer and you feel the foot being lifted from your face. You automatically lift your head in response to this new found freedom and regret it instantly as the foot comes crashing back down into your cheek, making your head hit the ground again with a thud that rattles your skull and blurs your vision slightly. You then feel a set of hand roughly grab your shoulders and hoist you to your feet. You unsteadily get your feet under you and the two boys on either side of you, who you assume dragged you up, got you into some sort of hold that you assume they used for wrestling. You are unable to move your arms in any way, let alone your body. The best you could do was squirm a little and that does nothing but make you more vulnerable.

He walks in front of you with Vriska under his arm and smirks at your position. You notice that Vriska is still holding your shirt so that you can see it, "So, my dear," he says, looking down at her, "should we give it to him?"

She places her hand under her chin as though in deep thought and eventually answers, "I don't know, he doesn't seem very appreciative of the improvements we've made to it," she gives you an evil grin, "I don't think he's ready to receive such a marvelous gift yet."

He looks back at you, "How do you propose he earn his gift?" he asks with an almost innocent tone, but there was no hiding that malice completely. Not now, not ever.

"Well," Vriska responds, walking toward you, "the meat on him seems to be a bit to tough for something like this," she prods your bruised shoulder and you flinch, "He needs to be a bit softer to earn such a gift," she saunters back over to her boyfriend, who takes her back under his arm.

"You heard the lady," he says, "Hop to it."

And that was all she wrote.

Out of no where, you feel a foot make contact with your kidneys and you are knocked from the two posse members' hold. You sprawl to the ground and try to get up. Try to get away, a feral instinct is taking over you. It is telling you to fly. You stumble to your feet only to be kicked in the ribs by Vriska's boyfriend, "Don't let him get away, idiots!" he laughs down at you. You groan at the pain in your ribs and again when you feel someone roughly lay you on your back. You feel someone sit on your chest and then the feel of fists pounding into your skull. Your head turns from side to side with the blows.

Left, right, left, right, left, right, left. You can feel the blood on your face, you don't know where it came from, but you know that it's bad.

Right, left, right, left, right. The blows are slowing down slightly.

Left, right, left. Mucus, tears and blood splatter on the pavement like rain as you take the brutality.

Right. You can start to actually feel the pain now, it is sharp yet throbbing, slick and warm, and soft, just like Vriska had asked for.

Left. You were beginning to slip under. Not quite feeling anything anymore. They could have been kicking you, biting you, making you suffer unspeakable horrors. You couldn't bring yourself to care anymore, at least you weren't going to feel pain anymore.

"That's enough," you hear from somewhere above you. The blows cease and you blink a few times, pain and blood racing through your veins and settling somewhere around your nose. Great...

You feel more hands on your shoulders and you are jolted to your feet again, a flash of pain flares through your system and eventually settles to a dull throb. You stand before Vriska and her boyfriend again, your left eye blinded by the blood that was filling it. They both have large, sadistic smiles on their faces, "Do you think he is tender enough?"

"Plenty."

With that word, you shirt is torn from your shoulders and all the bruises you have suffered are placed under the metaphorical microscope, "You look pretty fucked up, don't you faggot." You can't find the strength or energy to respond in any way, whether it be with a vocal answer or a movement of the head, "Well, is there anything else you'd like us to do to him before you give him his gift then?"

"Well... there is one thing that I'd like," she leans in and the way she holds herself, you'd think she'd be saying something with a... different connotation. Her boyfriend's eyes widen considerably as she talks to him.

"That can be arranged," he says, and is about to address his cronies when Vriska places a hand on his arm.

"I don't want him to get confused about whose stains are whose on the shirt," she says to him. You barely catch it due to the throbbing in your ears. You feel more tears stream down your face and sting the open wounds around your nose.

He glances back at her for a moment before returning his eyes to you. They almost seem disappointed, "Ah well, maybe next time, then. Go ahead, Vriska." She walks over to you and presents the shirt to you. You don't move to take it. You don't move to blink. You barely move to breath.

After she realizes you aren't going to do anything, she finds the neck hole of the shirt with her hands and slips the fabric over your head, not really paying any mind to your damaged nose. Pain splinters through your face again and it is enough to make you go numb for a moment as Vriska shimmies the shirt over your shoulders and slides your arms through the appropriate holes. As it slides over your navel, you are shocked back to reality as it grazes over an overly sensitive bruise. You find it in you to wince and look down at the rag of a shirt that now covers you. The stains that used to calm you on lonely nights now causes you more pain than any and all the beatings you had ever received.

You feel soft hands on your chin and your face is raised to the eyes of Vriska. You look at her as she inspects your face. There's something about her eyes that makes you feel... scared. A cold, chilling fear. Not that fiery, adrenaline fear that your other classmates inflict upon you. Her's is calculating, and intelligent.

"Yeah, I think he's had enough."

You are immediately dropped to the ground and you barely get your arms out in front of you in time to stop your fall before your face hits the ground again. You scuff up your fore arms pretty good and you moan lightly. When you lift your head up, the gang is walking down the road with their leader and his girlfriend. You can hear them laughing, but now it only sounds like a whisper.

You fall over on your side and curl in on yourself. You look ahead of you with your non swollen eye and see your backpack. You reach over, slowly, painfully, your arm shaking, and place your hand over the pocket that holds the box. You fumble for a minute with the zipper, but when it's open, you reach for it inside and grab what you're looking for with a touch of desperation. Once you have it in your hands, you hold it to your chest tightly and try to feel the comfort that so many people receive from the damned things. You hold it tighter. Why isn't it working? you wonder What is wrong with me?

You curl in on yourself even tighter, the sobs finally wrack your body. What is wrong with me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dies


	7. Chapter 7

Your name is John Egbert and you aren't certain that you are doing the right thing.

You lay along the side of the road for what feels like days but must have only been a few minutes. At least it was enough time for Vriska, her boyfriend, and their cronies to completely disappear down the road, hooting and hollering as they went as if they hadn't just physically, mentally, and psychologically abused someone who was beneath them. And, in reality, that's what you are, beneath them. If you were even close to their level, this wouldn't have happened.

After a few more shaky breaths and more than one attempt to accomplish the task, you get on your feet and saunter over to your bag, blood rushing to your head and making you dizzy. You reach up to your face and groan as a shot of pain flashes through your head; you realize that it would probably be a good idea not to touch your nose twice.

Slowly and almost ceremoniously, you place the razors back in the pouch and sling your bag over your shoulder, trying to avoid the bruises that are blossoming across your skin. You fail miserably and groan at the fresh and ancient pains that spring to your attention at the action.

You sigh once you are ready to get moving again and think for a moment.

You're going to have to do it.

You know there is no way he won't ask.

You can't avoid this forever.

You've made your decision.

You're going to tell your dad.

Fuck.

There is a multitude of reasons that you don't want to tell your dad. You have every single reason to believe that he will be thrown in a rage when you tell him. Somewhere, deep in your heart, however, you hope and pray that he will understand. That you'll still be his son no matter what you say, no matter what you are. You get a painful feeling that you are just kidding yourself.

You groan at your thoughts and pains and start walking down the road once again, dreading every step that will take you that much closer to potentially the most uncomfortable situation you've ever been in.

As you walk, your mind continues to race through every possible outcome of what will happen. None of them really make you feel any better because no matter what, things will never be able to go back to the way they were before you "came out".

Why can't you just ignore the problem at home. It's not like you need your dad to worry about you. He had to suffer through your mom's death too.

Before you realize what's happening, you are being thrown into the memory of the day you swore to forget.

* * *

_You are now a twelve year old John. Although you don't quite know it yet, your surprisingly tall and gangly figure will barely change during your high school career. You are currently in eighth grade and everything is going well in your life._

_You are in the same small town that you grew up in with the same mechanic's shop and the same school. You don't know it yet, but this whole place, full of blissful childhood memories is about to turn sou._

_You are currently walking home. You had just stayed the night at your best friend, Karkat's house and you are completely worn out from the hardcore Nic Cage marathon that you had forced your friend to suffer through. Thee horrible t.v. headache you are suffering from now is totally worth it and you have no regrets. nope, none at all._

_You are walking down an eerily silent Main Street when you just so happen to glance down the alley betwen the old supermakret and the even older antiques store. you see two figures standing the the shadows of the buildings and one of them is familar to you._

_"Mom?" Your voice booms in the nearly vacant space like it would in an abandoned church. One of the figures whips their head around and the long, dark, familiar hair comes around with it._

_"Johnathan?" she asks, her voice stressed and cracking from crying._

_"What's going on, mom?" you say not as loud._

_She moves as if to run to you, but the other figure speaks before she can take a step, "S-stop! Don't move, I'm warning you!"_

_Your mother stops instantly and looks at you, worry and fear clouding her kind features; it looks sickeningly unnatural on her. "Just stay back, John. I'll be alright. I need you to go home and-"_

_"Don't move, kid! I don't need you running off!" the stuttering voice of the other figure becomes even more distressed as you stand there, not sure what to do._

_"Johnathan, I need you to run home and get your father."_

_"Don't move, kid, or I blow her brains out!" you hear a click and for the first time, you see that the stuttering figure is holding a pistol. The barrel is aimed at your mother and is wavering dangerously. You freeze up, you can't seem to feel you feet or vocal chords, all you can do is stand there gaping._

_"John! Get out of here!" she moves toward you, legs shaking and tears streaming down her normally cheerful face._

_"I SAID DON'T MOVE!" the figure shouts, barrel still trained right on her._

_"Johnathan! Please, baby, RUN!" she's waving at you, signaling you to move. You can't, you want to so badly. You don't want to be here anymore, to see your mother like this, to see her scared and crying. But you can't just leave her. You're so scared, you're frozen and there's nothing you can do but stand there shaking. Your mother continues to yell at you. Get out, she says. The figure is telling you to stay. You don't know what to do, what to think, how to feel. Everything is chaos and all you can do is stand there. The loud boom that follows shakes you to your very core and the sight of your mother falling to the gravel crusted pavement releases you from your spell and you race toward her, one word on your lips._

_No._

* * *

That was years ago.

The pain should have dulled somewhat by now, right? Settled into more of an ache instead of this searing iron pressed into your heart that was just as hot as the day it happened? Right? And now it is worse than ever. They know the story of your mother's death, they know what you've been through. Who are you trying to fool? You stood by like a moron and let that person kill your mother. You couldn't even help the police find her killer. You were and always will be a helpless, useless piece of trash who can't even keep one good thing going in your life. You scared Karkat away for the last few days he was in town. You know it wasn't your fault that he left, but he doesn't even talk to you at all anymore. That was completely your fault. The last message you've received from Jade was an angry one telling you that you were going to get your ass handed to you for not talking to her. The funny thing was, you did.

You didn't even want to think about Dave. His whole situation could be summed up in four words: you are avoiding him. As far as you can tell, he seems to have gotten over his frustration at you ignoring him and is now moving on with his life. A life without you as his friend. You pull out your phone and open the pesterchum app on your homescreen. You open up ancient logs filled to the brim with similarly ancient red textr. You read over the lines you always seem to be going back to.

TG: come on john

TG: youre being kind of a kick right now

TG: what kind of bro leaves his best bro hangin

TG: youre breaking my heart here man

And lastly

TG: you know what john fuck you

That last one was the final time you heard from Dave. It probably hurt worse than the blows you received from your classmates. You take a deep, stuttering breath to calm yourself and clear your head.

Then there's your dad.

When your mom died, you seemed to be in a constant state of numbness. You only spoke when you were spoken to directly, you didn't sleep, barely ate. You know your dad worried for you and it makes you feel even worse now for not being there for him.

A while after your mother's funeral, your dad couldn't seem to take your seclusion and his wife's death on his own any longer. He could have turned to anything; drugs, alcohol, women. But he decided on the coping mechanism that he, you think upon reflection, assumed at the time wasn't going to hurt you. Your father turned to religion.

Once you were finally able to snap out of your shocked, grieving state, you quickly realized how different your father had become. You could tell that he had been trying to hide any changes that had occurred from you. He tried his best to act normally around you, but you noticed the constant presence of Betty Crocker products in the kitchen, your dad's tell for when he's under pressure or stressed. You noticed him humming your mother's old lullaby when working around the house or in his office. You noticed the cross he hung above the stove in the kitchen. you noticed, when you got out of bed for a late night snack, him on his knees, praying.

You hated that time, that lull in your relationship with your dad. Neither of you wanted to admit what was happening to the two of you. You couldn't even hold a decent conversation without it getting awkward. One night, you couldn't take the silence at the dinnertable and exploded, saying something along the lines of, "What the hell is wrong with us," and then going into a lengthy rant about how the two of you weren't even acting like father and son. Heck, you weren't even acting like you cared for one another! Once you had finished your tirade, breath slightly heavy from the frustration, he agreed with you and promised that he would try to be more open with you.

And open up he did.

The few weeks after your dad started actually speaking with you could definitely be classified as degrading. He seemed to over analyze everything you told him about your day or about something you had heard from a friend. no matter what you said, no matter how you tried to avoid it, the conversation always seemed to weasel it's way into something related to God. it really irritated you, trying to ask if Karkat could come over after school and your dad turning it into an invitation to go to church on Sunday.

That was another thing that got you riled up. Despite your many attempts to convince the man that you weren't into the whole church/religion thing, he made you go to Sunday School every week, no matter what.

Eventually, you just couldn't take it anymore.

One Sunday, when you were about fourteen, your dad came into your room to wake you up for church. You had already been awake, thinking hard about what you were about to do, so you rolled over, looking him straight in the eye and said, "I'm not feeling well."

There was obviously nothing wrong with you and you could tell your dad was baffled by the statement. He opened his mouth to reply, but you beat him to it and said, "I think it would be best if I stayed home today." Your dad had shut his mouth with a little snap and nodded, exiting the room as calmly as when he had entered.

He never got you up to go to church again.

You have often contemplated whether or not this decision was the right one based on what happened afterward: nothing. You honestly have no idea which is worse, the constant exposure to your dad's new-found enlightenment or the way the two of you seem to be doing nothing but avoiding each other. He never makes you come down to the table for dinner anymore. Meal time, if either of you make it, consists of the evenings chef yelling, "Dinner!" out into the silent house and then retreating to their dwelling with plate in hand. All contact is kept the bare minimum. And you are the only one who can take the blame for the tension between the two of you. Every single thing that is wrong with your relationship with your dad can be traced back to you in a neat little line. There is no avoiding it, there is no covering it up. Hell, you might as well carve it onto your chest for the world to see.

You eventually get home, bleeding and ready to bolt at any moment. You open the front door and pause for a moment to emotionally and mentally collect yourself. Convincing yourself you're sane enough, you grunt and force yourself to walk through the entrance way and into the kitchen where you know your dad is. Once you're in, you see the five foot ten man standing by the oven in his apron covered business suit and fedora. He glances over at you, surprise clearly written on his face before he actually takes in your appearance.

His mood instantly changes to the father you need him to be right now. Worry and slight panic take over his face as he rushes over to you and examines your face, "What happened to you, John?"

You manage to stutter out a light sigh. You don't know whether it's from the relief of your dad actually caring about you or from what you know you're going to have to admit, "Some kids from school jumped me after school..."

"Oh my," he glances around and motions toward one of the bar stools located around the granite island in the center of the kitchen, "Go on, sit down. I'll go get a first aid kit," you go to sit down hurriedly, thankful that you can do something other than talk. After a few moments of you sitting there, wondering how you are going to broach the subject, your dad walks in with a small white box. You cringe inwardly at the thought of what is in your bag and exactly how it had come into your possession. Your dad tilts your chin up and examines your face. You wince at the contact. He starts dabbing at the blood on your face and you hiss as the hydrogen peroxide comes into contact with cuts on your face. For the most part, he tries to avoid your nose, but you can feel the blood still dripping down your face slowly.

After a few more minutes of you hissing and wincing and your dad cleaning you up, he finally breaks the ice, "So, are you going to tell me why this happened?"

You wince at what you are about to say, hoping he won't notice the change in tone, "Uh..." you look him in the eye and he stops what he's doing. He looks back at you and you can feel the shameful tears forming in your eyes, blurring your vision even more and shooting pain through your veins once again. You see his head tilt down as if he is looking at your shirt. You can feel every letter burn your skin, scalding your flesh like white iron.

He looks back up at you, "Is it true?" he asks, tone level and unfeeling. You shiver and lower your head. You don't say anything, but both of you know what the answer is at this point. You can see his hand shake as he says, "Go to your room."

Tears still heavy, you grab your backpack and race up to your room, trying not to trip on anything on your way up the stairs. You make it into your room where you collapse onto the floor. You don't even care about the pain in your nose. It's welcome. It can come in anytime it likes so long as it washes away the pain you are feeling right now.

You kick your door shut from the floor before curling in on yourself and letting the sobs wrack you. How in the hell had you expected anything different from your father? How in the hell could he have ever- have ever accepted you? You don't understand why you put yourself through this torture. You drew yourself into believing that people could be good to you. That people could understand you. Who were you kidding? No one would ever understand  _you_. No way in hell anyone would ever accept you. It was a desperate form of self mutilation that you were putting yourself through, you bring yourself up, only to have the world tear you down farther than when you started. There was absolutely no hope for a piece of shit like you.

This time, without hesitation, you reach into your bag and pull out the razors. You try, almost desperately, to get the package open, but when you do, you break out a blade and press it gently to the skin of your forearm and lightly caress the skin with it. You hiss as the pain slips into your blood and reciprocates with a few dots of the red liquid as compensation for the blessed act. You run the blade over your skin three more times before you are satisfied with your own new-found enlightenment. Just like you had driven your father to desperation, he has driven you to it as well.

And you can't say you don't regret or deserve a second of it.

 


	8. Chapter 8

You're name is John Egbert and you don't know if you can take it anymore.

You pass through the school day on nothing but weak determination and some crazed sense of necessity. As the day wears on, you find yourself caring less and less about your studies, which you could barely find the strength to care about in the first place. You are still confused as to what divine power managed to get you out of bed this morning.

You wake up the next morning in a haze. Nothing matters, nothing can touch you, you are floating in your sheets and nothing matters. You are drifting somewhere between waking and sleep when you realize that you can't be pulled down under, however much you want to; and with this realization comes the stabbing pain of consciousness. You roll your head over so that you are facing your clock and see that the buzzer gave up on you a long time ago. You groan and roll out of bed, accepting that you are not going to make it to school on time.

Today is going to be a hard day and you know it, but there's nothing stopping you from walking out that door.

So now here you are, roaming the hallways between classes, not bothering to eat lunch, one of which you don't possess anyway. You can't even be bothered to go to your locker to see if Vriska and her lackeys had left you another "gift." Curiosity guides you for a few moments before you decide against checking; you aren't sure if you need anything that she could give you to bring you down, you are doing a pretty bang up job of it as it is. The final bell rings harshly in your ears.

You remove yourself from your desk and exit the room. You are content to wander the ahlls until your fellow students vacate the school. You can't say you're in a hurry, you don't have a bus to catch and you doubt either you or your dad want you home anyway, and what you are about to do you feel you should do alone.

You stroll down the hall heading toward your locker and you are plagued by your thoughts and emotions. you feel as though you are sinking, yes, sinking. You find this to be a very accurate metaphor of what you're feeling. It's as though you are a swimmer at the beach and it was all fun at first, cruising through life with nary a care in teh world. Then you decided to take a chance and swim even farther away from the shore and you payed the price for it. You were sucked under by a wave, the crushing blow sending you end over end. you couldn't tell which way was up and you were fighting for air, fighting for your life. You then began to panic, tried so hard to return to where you were before, the surface. But the waves just kept fighting back and they are stronger than you, so much stronger, there's no way you can compete. In a last ditch attempt to save yourself, you inhale, hoping silently that air will magically rush into your lungs, that you will suddenly change and grow gills. But you're drowning, so that lungful of air turns into a lungful of water and that's when you lose all your fight.

And now you've given in to your fate.

That's it.

It's beaten you.

You'd say that a life guard could save you, but it seems that there aren't any around any-

BANG.

You crash to the ground as one of the football jocks shoulder checks you and sends you and your things to the ground. You hear the jock's mocking laughter as he walks away. You rub your shoulder in pain and irritation and begin to pick up your things. You hear a set of footsteps come up behind you when they suddenly stop a few feet back. Fear grips you for a moment and the papers in your hands are rustling because your hands are shaking so hard. You finish picking up the notebook you were hovering over and turn around. What you see surprises you.

There is a boy, about your age, hunched over and picking up your binder. There is nothing all that striking about him, other than his white-blonde hair. He rights himself, oh god he's taller than you, and offers you your notebook without a word. You just stare at him for a moment, but you can't tell if he's staring back at you or not because his mirror shades are blocking your view of his eyes.

What, is he just going to stand there?

Is he going to do anything?

Say anything?

At all?

You stare back and forth, as far as you can tell, for what seems like hours but what must have been only seconds. You cautiously extend your hand out and take your binder from him.

"Thank you," you manage to choke out.

He simply nods at you and walks back the way he came. You suppose this response was supposed to have a sort of stoic, level-headed effect, one that left the receiver thinking, "Wow, what a cool kid."

It had the desired effect.

Shaking the (was it awe?) away, you turn back to the task at hand and finish the trek to your locker.

This is it. The moment of truth. Do you open it? You already know the answer to THAT question. What could it possibly be, anyway? What more could she possibly think up to do to you that you have already suffered through? What more is there? How much more can she do?

Despite all these thoughts, you are still scared. You gulp lightly once you enter the combination into your lock and it glides open easily. Taking a final deep breath, you open the locker door, and your heart sinks through the floor. Someone has taken all of your books and binders. All your pictures are gone, the blue shelf that Jade had gotten you is missing as well. All that is left is a wrapped box and a note.

Feeling pale, you grab the note first, like always, and break the seal, feeling the icy chill of those blue words inside taunting you. You remove the slip of paper from its hold and unfold it, reading the words as they are revealed.

Egbert,

One more step...

Love, V ;)

You are immediately confused by this, but that doesn't surprise you. Nothing horrible really surprises you anymore and this is sure to be the worst of it.

This is what it all comes down to. You and that package. You just look at it for a few seconds and get up the courage to open it. Once you feel you have it in you, you don't even remove the package fro the small space, not because you don't want to, but because this one's a lot bigger that the others. So, instead of removing the harassing mass, you rip the paper off the top of it, where you're sure you'll be able to pry it open andlift the lid. The first emotion that hits you is a light disappointment. Despite your original assumption, you are abble to fully lift the lid of the box; although you are able to get it open enough to see what's inside. This realization leads you swiftly to your second emotion.

Resignation

You begin to walk home in a daze. Should you do it? Shouldn't you? It's not like anyone cares about you anyway. There's no lifeguard on duty. No one's going to save you and you can't save yourself. So why even bother trying anymore?

Because you're too chicken to go through with it?

Because there might actually be something worth living for?

You think the former is the more likely case.

But for now, you walk. You don't really want to go home right now. If you go home, your mind will become cluttered with useless emotions and thoughts. That's not what you need right now. You need to give your brain a breath of fresh air; you need to clear your mind.

And so you walk. You don't have any particular destination in mind, but you guess that's what they say, it's all about the journey.

So you keep walking, you allow your mind to wander to more pleasant thoughts; ones that don't make your head hurt, one's that don't make your heart ache. You mostly think about your mom. She used to smell like vanilla. You were never quite sure whether it was a perfume that gave her the scent, or if it was just her natural odor, but you liked it. Sometimes, when you're wearing - were wearing - that shirt you found her in, you thought you could still sense that homey essence; it always seemed to make you feel better. But now anymore, there's a different memory tied to it now.

And so you keep walking.

And walking.

And walking.

Without even realizing it, you begin to think about Dave. You're not quite sure if you're ashamed to admit it or not, but you miss him. You miss your best friend. And you've done nothing for your relationship with him but screw everything up. Even if you convinced him to let you talk to him again, a prospect you find very unlikely at this point, there would always be that tension, there would always be that thought that you weren't strong enough to even maintain a friendship. That's something that you don't think you can-

You stop in your tracks at the sound of a click and a flash of light. You look up and the feeling of your gut hitting your shoes makes your head spin. Standing in front of you is Vriska's boyfriend with his cronies and he has a knife.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" he said ominously, "A faggot caught in a trap?" the cronies laughed and you try to remain calm. You know that what they have in store for you can't be good. He seems to be waiting for you to say something.

"Gonna say something faggot?" without warning, two jocks come up from behind you and secure your arms behind your back and kick the back of your knees so you're forced to fall to your knees, "Gonna call for your mommy?" You look up at him. You know what he sees in your eyes; it's not panic, or fear, or even stoicism. He sees resignation. He doesn't seem to be very satisfied by this because he shrugs his shoulders out of his jacket and as he's turning to hand it to one of the boys at his side, he says, "Well, if you were going to call out for her help, here would probably be the best place to do so." And that's when you notice where you are.

You are in the alley you found your mom in.

This is where she was killed.

She was standing about where you are kneeling right now.

You think you're going to be sick.

"But today," he turns back toward you, knife still in hand, "we are going to paint it a different color red," this sends the first panic you've felt all day up your spine and you feel your throat begin to close up. You feel your jaw go slack, but you're pretty sure it's never been so tight in your life. Were they really going to kill you? Were they really willing to go as far as to murder another student? Did Vriska really have that much control over them?

You guess you are about to find out.

"Take his shirt off," he says and his lackeys immediately do his bidding and rip your backpack, jacket, and shirt and throw them somewhere out of your view. Once your mottled flesh and fresh scars are visible, he walks up to you with a dastardly smile on his face. He reaches and prods your chest as though feeling the toughness of meat.

"What do you think, boys," they all laugh at their leader's upbeat tone, "Do you think he's tender enough?" A rumbled no echoes off the walls of the alley way, "Well then," he looks around, "Pound him."

And they do.

The first blow strikes you in the face and you are sent sprawling. From then on, it's almost impossible to tell which blow comes next. With almost a mob-like severity, Vriska's crew comes down on you with so many blows that you can't even think straight. You try to go deep into your mind, to find that place where you are weightless, but you can't. Each punch, each kick, each stomp draws you back. Some blows are worse than others; at one point, someone kicks you in the face and your whole head is thrown into a fiery pain that center's somewhere around your nose. The beating seems to be never ending.

But then, thank your lucky stars, it does end and each person slowly backs away from you. You realize that at some point, without your knowledge, you had curled up into a ball on your side as if trying to protect yourself. Once that last person throws in their final kick and backs away, you roll onto your hands and knees and cough despite the pain. Blood scatters on the ground.

"Are you satisfied then, gentlemen?" Vriska's boyfriend asks the group. They all signal their approval, "Well then, I have a girlfriend I have no intention of disappointing," and with that, you are grabbed roughly by the shoulders and put back in a kneeling position facing the boy with the knife. You can't find the energy to stay up on your own anymore so the jocks that had brought you up had to stay there to make sure you remained upright.

Vriska's boyfriend struts up to you with the switchblade in his right hand and his left was positioned in front of him like he was an artist about to make his first brushstroke, "Now where to begin, where to begin..." He takes a few more moments to decide and you pray to whatever deity is out there that you will fall unconscious. But alas, your luck has run out once again because suddenly, and almost without warning, the knife is on the flesh of your chest and you feel the first mark being claimed. You don't have the energy to scream or break free, so you do the best you can and try to wiggle away from the knife with your mouth open in a vain attempt to scream. All that comes out of your mouth is a strangled squeak.

"Sorry, what was that?" he asks after he's finished. Everyone laughs, "You want more? Okay!" He delves in with the knife again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

He runs the blade across your chest a total of ten more times.

Once he's finished, you can feel the blood running down your stomach, you can feel the hands of the jocks holding you in your place, but most of all, you can feel the searing pain in your chest that you can't seem to escape no matter how you position yourself.

"I believe our work here is done gentlemen," he says after he cleans the blade on your shorts and has it tucked safely away his pocket. Then, with his words, the two jocks at your side shove you to the ground and you can feel the dirt work its way into your wounds. You lay there and sob for a few minutes until you can pull yourself together to assess your condition.

You somehow manage to get yourself on your knees once again and you look down at your chest and see your wounds for the first time. You gasp in honest shock at what you see written in speckled red.

F

A

G

You know for a fact that this time you are going to be sick. Not having the energy to move any farther, you vomit straight in front of you and you use up a good deal of your self control to keep yourself from falling into it once you're done. You just sit there, absorbed with your pain for a few more minutes and then the tears begin to fall again, because while you're sitting here feeling sorry for yourself...

You know you deserve every second of it.

You turn around and crawl over to where they had thrown your back pack and you reach for the main pocket's zipper. You fumble with the contraption in fierce concentration and once you finally get it open, you reach inside and feel the rough texture of the gift that Vriska had sent you. You grasp your present and pull it out of its blue confinement and hold it up for you to observe with a serious determination.

Out of your bag, you pull out the rope.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> QDHSDOJFHS!
> 
> I feel so bad about writing this chapter!
> 
> Bleargh! But anyway! The next one is going to be the last actual chapter for this fic


	9. Chapter 9

Your name is John Egbert and you are going to do it.

You think...

The rope dangles in front of you and think about everything that's happened to you over the course of the year. All that pain, all that suffering. You can say that there have been some good things that happened to you. Dave for one. Jade for another. But even these good things you were able to spoil, you took them in your hands and cherished them, but the salt water from your lungs washed them away.

You sit here just staring at the symbol in your hand and try to think through the blood seeping from the cuts on your chest; it is becoming very difficult. Perhaps you shouldn't even do anything about them, maybe you should just let yourself bleed to death. You've heard that it's like falling asleep, that's something you definitely think you could get behind. But what kind of person would that make you? You feel a rush of exhaustion wash over you and you lay on your back, the cold, ancient pavement chilling your spine and rubbing more black grit onto your body. It feels like sandpaper against your roughly abused flesh. You hold the cordage over your head and let it sway back and forth in the breeze. It's almost as if there is someone hanging from it already.

No. You can't do it, you selfish little shit. You know for a fact that you won't be able to take that last step, no matter how far underwater you are. You wish you could do it, now. God, why can't you just make a decision you can follow through with. Ever. You think for a moment longer.

There  _is_  one thing you can do...

You sit up, painfully, and manage to get yourself to your feet. You make your way back toward your backpack and grope at it. Your vision is blurry from the pain and you don't know if what your about to do could even be considered-

Well...

That's not really what's important right now.

You finally manage to get your hand on the zipper and rip the bag open as quickly as your sluggish brain will allow you. You grasp hurriedly for a pen or a pencil, you don't care, and your notebook. You stare at the baby blue cover of it for just a moment. It had been doodled on constantly throughout the year and you can see the timeline of your mental and emotional state. The most recent doodles consist of overly large slash marks with blood and pus leaking out of them; you don't think you remember drawing them as detailed as you had, if you're honest. As you move backward in your timeline, you see images of your dad's signature fedora, crushed and bloodied. The same thing occurs with Dave's shades, or at least what you think they look like. You'd never actually seen them for yourself so you had just drawn what you imagined to be sitting on his imaginary face. A tear slides down your face as you recall how betrayed you felt at Dave's unwillingness to share his face with you. It was a harsh feeling, but honestly, that hurt did plenty to distract you from the pain of your fathers absence and the torture from the kids at school. You keep moving back in time, farther back in the year until you reach the first day of school. You had drawn a picture of the iconic Ghostbusters Ghost. So simple, so happy. You wish you were capable of returning to those days and starting over before you made your mistake. It would have been different if you just hadn't spoken your mind. You shouldn't have said a thing.

But things are what they are and there is nothing you can do to change that. So you open the notebook and turn to the next blank page. You take a deep breath and begin to write.

To whom it may concern:

I don't really know if anyone even is concerned to tell you the truth, but I guess this is what people do in times like these right? They leave a letter. For their loved ones. But I guess I don't really have any of those, well none that care about me anyway. Maybe it'd be best if I keep this short.

My life overall hasn't been all that eventful. I excell at biology, but I don't think there's anything else that's noteworthy. People always seemed to be on my side up until this last year and I don't know why to be honest. It just feels like everything's been thrown to the dogs so to speak and all of it was because I opened my big, fat mouth.

It all started when I told my best friend that I had feelings for him. Yes him. And I guess, if you don't know me, that you can see the scandal behind this since I am also male. I just don't understand why it was such a big deal that I had a dick and so did he. If there was one question that I wish was answered, it'd be why. Why did this happen. I know that I deserve it. I've always been worthless, not good at anything, and on top of that I'm gay. I just don't really understand it, but I know I deserve it. Does that make sense? Whatever, I won't be around much longer, anyway.

I don't even know how I'm supposed to feel anymore. When all this first started out, I tried to convince myself that "I was strong" I can't think of a bigger lie in all my life that I've ever told anyone. Ever. But now, everything just seems to blur together; lines are being crossed, I realize this. No one else should have to suffer what I'm feeling right now as I'm bleeding. I don't really know what to say.

I guess the point of this is to say goodbye. There really is no reason for me to be here anymore. I love the people in my life, but they can't seem to stand me. And really, what else is there for a person to live for in their life? I wish that this letter would somehow get to those people that I've hurt. Dave. I don't know if you'll ever get to read this, but if you do. It's not your fault. It never was. This is all me and I feel nothing but selfish and self-centered for dragging you around like a beaten puppy. I have had no right to have a friend as good as you were to me. Thank you.

Hell if I know if anyone will even read this. Hell if I know if anyone even cares anymore.

I sure as hell don't anymore.

Goodbye,

John Egbert

Okay. This is it. The moment of truth.

You slowly reach into your bag and retrieve a razor from a package you don't remember having left amongst your school items. You know that if you just lay here long enough, you would bleed out of your own accord, but you don't think you can handle a death that slow. There is just no way around it. The deed needs to be done and it needs to be done now.

Feeling like the process deserves some semblance of ceremony, you lie on the ground and grab your shirt and lay it over your torso, making sure to leave the marks left on you visible. You then raise your wrist and expertly drag the clean blade across your flesh, feeling the familiar sting. You know it's not enough to make things move faster so you slice it again with more pressure.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Until you nearly reach your bone. The amount of red flowing out of your arm is astounding and you feel an inkling of lightheadedness already. You swiftly do the same with your other wrist and lay them down by your side with your palms facing up so you can feel the streams of blood course over the entirety of your wrists.

What will people think of you now? Some sort of martyr? A victim? Maybe some people will, but everyone will see you for what you truly are, a coward and a freak who shouldn't have been stricken upon the Earth to begin with.

You guess that some decent things came out of your time in this existence. Your mother for one. You can almost smell her over the iron tang of blood in the air. When she was with you, she never kept her smile off her face for very long. She was always there for you, sometimes in the only way she could: as a beloved memory. Jade was another. She never got angry with you. She was always kind, but she was constantly busy. You totally understood. She didn't have time for a worthless heap like you and you never wanted to push the issue. And then there was Dave. He always treated you like a real person. There was no one who would make sure you were okay like he would. Even though he was just a wall of red text to you, there was nothing better then hearing the familiar ping from your computer and being launched into a new rap he'd written or seeing one of his lengthy metaphors that always floored you with their irony. And you are floating away. Surrounded by clouds of blood and the sound of humanity just a few hundred yard away. There was no going back now so you just let yourself drift off into the abyss.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank god for epilogues, am I right? *falls over


	10. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is probably my favorite in the whole fic...

Your name is John Egbert and you're... not dead?

The first sense that comes to you hits you like a wrecking ball. Pain. Throbbing, intense pain centered around your wrist. You groan at the sensation and almost instantly there is a beep that comes from somewhere to your left and relief floods over you swiftly afterward. This gives you the opportunity to, without opening your eyes, take everything in. You can hear wheels squeaking on what you assume to be linoleum floors and the static that, if you are correct, comes from an ancient television set that is somewhere in front of you. You can also hear someone breathing gently from where that first beep came from. You can smell a multitude of different things. Body odor is pretty prominent in the mixture. You think that whoever it is could use some deodorant before you realize that, after shifting and disturbing the air, that the smell is coming from you. You cringe inwardly until you smell... strawberries? You mentally shrug and move on. The smell of various cleaning agents hits you like a wrecking ball and you think you are beginning to get a good idea of where you are.

You finally open your eyes and see nothing but white. Initially you think that you were wrong and that somehow you had died and had somehow managed to get into heaven, but you quickly note the steady tick of some machine on your right and realize that your assumption had in fact been correct.

You are in the hospital.

As you keep your tired eyes open, you begin to feel a headache overwhelm you. You are so confused, you had no doubt in your mind at the time that you were going to die. There was absolutely no way around it. The cuts had simply been too deep.

In some panicked wrought adrenaline rush, you try to sit up and get out but significant pain in your chest and a head rush knocks you back onto your back. There was something else that helped keep you down, however, and that something was a hand.

Startled by your realization, you turn you head and look at your arm. There's someone's hand there alright; strong yet lean fingers are resting lightly on your bicep. Your eyes trail up to a red sleeve which contain an obviously muscular arm, but your journey doesn't stop there. You make your way to a well defined shoulder until you finally reach the face that owns the hand currently holding you to the mediocre hospital bed. The platinum blonde hair grabs your attention first, followed by a pair of shades. You recognize him as the guy who helped you pick up your things that last day.

But what was he doing here?

You peer at him for a moment, "Um," you start hesitantly, voice raw, "I don't mean to be impolite, but who are you? And what am I still doing here?"

He smirks at you and you assume it's supposed to have the same effect as a chuckle. He then leans back in the chair he occupies and retrieves a yellow legal pad and a pen from your bedside table. He scribbles on the pad for a moment and then offers it to you. You look at him suspiciously for a moment and then hesitantly take the pad from him. You look down at the red letters that state rather simply as though they would answer any question:

_My name is Dave Strider._

And you can honestly say that you're socks are thoroughly knocked off. You snap your head back up and wait for your vision to clear from the accompanying head rush, "W-what?" You look down at the legal pad again to make sure you had it right. How could this possibly be real? You look up at him again and his face is schooled into perfect stoicism. He nods once. You just stare at the letters for a while longer and before you know it, you're crying. You realize that it's immature, but you feel you deserve the right. After all, you've been heavily bullied for the past seven months of your life, your father practically disowned you, you just attempted to commit suicide,

And now possibly the most significant person in your life who you believed not to care about you is sitting by your side miles away from where he's supposed to be.

You immediately feel arms around you and you can't be bothered by the pain you feel in both your chest and your wrists and you wrap your arms around your best friend and sob violently into his shoulder. All the emotions that you've kept hidden from the world rush to the forefront all because of five little words. Five little words and, somehow, being held by your best friend wipes all that hurt away. You didn't even know that it was possible for you to feel this kind of relief anymore.

After a while of silent sniffling and Dave's breath caressing your ear lightly, calming you significantly, you pull away from him and he returns to his seat, his hand gently holding yours. You attempt to wipe away the tears on your face, but quickly give up the impossible task. You then examine Dave and he examines, from what you can tell, you right back.

"Why are you here?" You ask, he tilts his head questioningly, "I mean, not that I'm not glad you're here, but aren't you supposed to be in Texas right now?"

He sighs and extends his hand for the note pad. You hand it back to him. He writes down his response and shows it to you.

_Our last conversation scared the shit out of me. I convinced Bro to let me come check on you._

After you're finished reading this, you look back up at him and purse your lips, "Dave, I told you that-" before you can finish speaking, he presses his finger to your lips, silencing you. He writes something else.

_I read your note. That's why_.

He is literally doing nothing but confuse you, "What is that even supposed to mean? How could you even know what I was feeling?" He got a confused look on his face.

_Well, I care about you, John. I know we've only spoken, well, communicated by Pesterchum, but... I just know._

When you look back up at him, he's smiling. You can't help but smile back, "I still don't understand why I'm still here." He simply circles _I care about you_. Wait a second, "You- you saved me?" he nods at you, his face schooled into a poker face once again, "but, why?" he moves his pen to circle the four words again but you interrupt him. "Yeah I get it, you care about me, but I don't think simply caring about someone warrants flying from Texas to make sure they're okay," you give him a questioning look and he purses his lips in thought before turning back to the paper and writing out:

_I don't know, I guess it's because of how you're acting now._

Now you're lost, "I don't know what that means." He continues.

_I guess I'll start from the beginning if you don't mind_ , you shake your head no,  _Okay. Well I've always been like this. And if you ask me what I will - you know what? Nevermind. But I've been mute since before I can remember._

_My parents sucked, I don't really remember them much, but not long after Rose and I were born, my parents took off and bro was thrown in as the daddy-figure and well... it's complicated and not that important, but basically, it'd be hard enough fitting in if I just had to worry about not having a mom when I brought friends over. But I can't speak, so I kind of became a loner._

_My bro taught me an important lesson when I was bitching about not having friends one day though, "they don't want to be your friend? Fine, but make sure they regret it." I have no idea whether he wanted me to kick their asses or whatever, but I went with the option that wouldn't get me expelled, I became the cool kid. Now I don't know how or why, but pretty quick after, there were tons of kids who wanted to get to know the mysterious Dave Strider. I just rolled with it, I literally gave no fucks. Zero, zilch, nada. Not a single fuck was given to anyone. But despite all this "power," people still treat me differently. Like, "Hey, he's that cool kid, Dave Strider. But don't expect him to say anything 'cause he can't" or "He never says anything because he's a mute, asshat." I'm never just a normal person._

_But then you came along and I couldn't help but feel a little better about my situation. I thought "hey, here's a person who doesn't know who I am, doesn't know about my disability. He'll treat me like a regular human being," and you turned out to be a pretty good dude._

_So when you leave me hanging like you did, I panicked I guess. I couldn't handle losing my best friend._

By the time you finish reading this, you are nearly in tears again and he returns his hand to yours where he grips it lightly before writing:

_I guess I had nothing to worry about because here you are, couped up in some shitty hospital with a friend you didn't know was mute just sitting here writing letters to you like some thirteen year old school girl with a crush and you aren't saying a damn thing about it._

You look up at him, "Wow, Dave." You manage to get out after a moment of contemplation, "I thought I'd lost you for good," you ignore the pain and squeeze his hand as much as you are capable, which is barely at all, "and your wrong," you continue, looks at you with confusion written plainly over his features, "you're my best friend." He smiles at you and nods, a tear sliding down his face. You can't help but giggle lightly, "I thought cool kids weren't supposed to cry."

He makes a raspy noise that you assume is supposed to be a laugh and he blotchily writes:

_It's ironic._

"Yeah, sure," you say, settling into the comfortable banter the you thought you'd never be able to have with your best friend ever again. You begin again after a moment, "So I guess I'm going to have to learn sign language now, huh?" He looks at you in surprise and you can't help but laugh a little at him, "What's that look?" He shakes his head and writes:

_No one has ever offered to learn sign language for me before. It's surprising._

"Well what do you want me to do? Just speak to you and wait for you to write everything out? No, not gonna happen," he smiles at you and you smile right back. You two are both content to just sit and watch the shitty t.v. together, but then you feel the corner of the pad prod your arm. You look down at it and read what Dave has to say.

_You know, I've really been trying not to press the issue or anything, and you don't have to answer, but why'd you do it?_

You purse your lips. You were hoping you could avoid the topic, which you still could at this point. Dave said you don't have to talk about it and if you say that you don't want to, he'll respect that and move on. But you truly feel that he has a right to know. More than anyone, in fact.

So you take a deep breath and start, "It was rough, Dave."

_How rough?_

You scoff a bit at his words, "You said you found me?," he nods, "That was only the extent of the physical pain. Those people did so much more to me. I convinced myself that I deserved all the torture they bestowed upon me. All the rude comments, all the shoving, making sure I was isolated from the rest of my school mates. And worst of all were the gifts."

_The gifts?_

"Yeah, there's this girl at school who I guess decided that I was weak or something and decided that I-" Dave prods your shoulder.

_What's her name?_

You gulp slightly at the memory of her smug grin, "Vriska Serket," he nods and gestures for you to continue, "but anyway, she started giving me these gifts that had horrible things in them..."

You launch into the tale of the last few months of your life with few tears spared at the more painful memories: Karkat leaving, your dad freaking out, when the bullies ruined the shirt you found your mother in, and most of all when you felt that the last person who really mattered to you had left. Dave just holds you during your tale, sometimes stopping you to ask questions. You do your best to hold nothing back, but it is extremely difficult when he asks you about why you thought things the way you had.

_Do you still feel that way about yourself?_

He asks you after you're finished telling him what you had thought before you passed out. You find yourself unable to give him an accurate answer so you just respond with, "I'm not sure. It feels better now that you're here," and lowering your eyes, you add, "but I still feel worthless," you start crying again like the miserable hunk of carved flesh that you are. You almost immediately feel Dave's arms wrap around you again and it gives you comfort that he cares about you even though you aren't sure that you do.

Once you regain your composure, you say, "I actually have a question for you," he tilts his head in inquiry, "You never actually told me what you think of my sexuality." Almost immediately he writes something down and you hope for the best, but you are unpleasantly surprised when he says:

_That's not a question._

You give his smug-ass face a stern look and say, "Don't be a dick, this is important." He rolls his eyes at you and jots down.

_Of course I'm okay with it, Egderp. I wouldn't be here if I wasn't._

This almost surprises you.

Just because you've got a thing for dicks doesn't mean that you can't be my best bro. He smiles at you after you read this. You feel a grateful tear slide down your cheek at this.

_Now you gotta promise me something, man_.

"Yeah, what is it."

_If it ever gets this bad ever again, you skype me._  Beneath this he writes his username. You smile like a giddy fool and nearly rip yourself from the machines you're hooked up to in an attempt to hug him to death.

"Of course."

* * *

You wake up on your new mattress, a sweaty mess.

The heat in your new bedroom is stifling and you can't seem to catch a breath. Your covers are already thrown off the bed and you're only being covered by your briefs, yet you are sweating like a pig and you are really wondering why there is no AC right now. You then here a loud slam and you know what's up almost instantly.

You hurriedly drag yourself out of bed, the scars on your chest and wrists itching slightly, and throw on a set of shorts and a t-shirt. It disgusts you to look down and see the result of your biggest failure, so you never examine yourself in the mirror before your torso is safely covered. You jet out of your room as soon as is humanly possible over to where you know the air conditioning system to be located and you whine out, "It's broken  _again_?"

Your blonde headed best friend turn around and shoots you his signature "no shit" face. He then rapidly signs to you  _What the fuck else does it do?_

"Well I don't know. I don't understand why we don't just get it replaced," you mumble, grumpy because you had to wake up in this insane temperature.

_We're broke. That's why._

You sigh, "I'm sick of being broke..."

_That's the life of a college student, man._

You groan and go to the kitchen to get yourself some ice to chew on. When you had been released from the hospital, Dave had informed you that he was going to be staying in town for a while. When you inquired to how much longer, he wouldn't say, but you had a sneaking suspicion that he'd never be too far away from you if you ever needed anything. He later explained to you that this included giving you a shoulder to cry on, springing you from your prison of a house in the wee hours of the morning, and kicking the shit out of your dad if the need ever arose. You try your best not to think about the last option.

But basically what happened was that Dave stayed with you until you graduated high school in the spring. He had helped you with every issue you had, emotional, social, physical or otherwise. One of the most important decisions he helped you come up with was which colleges to apply to.

_I don't want to sway your decision at all,_  you recall him saying,  _but I want you to be aware of the fact that I will be attending my local college,_  and then it was almost as though he had pulled the pamphlet out of nowhere and placed it in front of you,  _and I hear they have a pretty decent life sciences department._

And that's where you are now, sitting in the tiny kitchen of your apartment that you share with your best friend. You are currently majoring in biomechanical engineering and Dave is focusing on music theory and composition. And now neither of you know how to properly fix the faulty AC unit. At this point, Dave struts into the room and sits on the counter.

_It is literally no use,_  he signs,  _I've tried everything from checking the wires to turning it off and on again. There is simply no way to fix the damn thing._

"Did you try hitting it with a wrench?"

_Why didn't I think of that?,_ he asks sarcastically,  _thanks, smart ass, didn't think of that._ He rests his hands on his lap for a second, a drip of sweat sliding slickly down his face,  _I don't know when it'll be fixed, but we'll be able to survive until then._

You don't think this past year could ever have been expressed more efficiently.

 


	11. Epi-epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is JUST A TASTE of the sequel to this called "Glad I Said It." If I'm lucky, I'll be getting the first chapter up some time later today. Thank you sooo much for taking the time to read my stuff! (sorry if you didn't want this to be a romance thing)

Your name is John Egbert and you're about to shut down.

You are currently sitting on your sleeping bag in the tent you're sharing with your best friend. You are staring at your open suitcase with your jaw hanging open and your hands seem to frantically search for the piece of fabric that you've already convinced yourself isn't there. You could have sworn you'd packed it...

You jerk your head up at the sound of Dave hitting the side of the tent, essentially telling you to, "Hurry your ass up." You can see his silhouette lingering on the thin, fabric walls of the tent. His board shorts are plainly visible; his obviously shirtless form seems to mock you.

"Yeah, just a sec! I need to find something first!" you turn your attention back to your suitcase and you notice that your hands are shaking violently. You can feel sweat gathering on your face as panic beings to take you over for the first time in months. This is ridiculous, it's been months since you had your last attack. Nearly two years since you left the hospital. Over a year since you moved in with Dave as his roommate. A few months since you and Dave-

The sound of the tents zipper interrupts you and you look up instantly to see Dave's hands proceed him as he signs rapidly at you, _Rose and Jade are already down by the river. We need to hurry up so they won't-_  he abruptly stops, his hands hanging in the air when he sees you sitting there, a complete mess,  _John?_

You want to respond, say anything at all, but all you can sputter out is, "I-I... I can't-" You throw yourself back to the suitcase in a frenzy before brusquely stopping again and resting your forehead on your hands.

In your peripheral vision, you see Dave approaching you and, completely unintentionally, you flinch away from his lean figure as though he was Vriska Serket herself. He kneels down in front of you and you whimper lightly, but your hands won't. stop. searching. Gently, Dave extends his strong hands toward your long fingers and grips them lightly, halting them. You force yourself to look into his eyes, which you finally notice aren't hidden by his shades. His fiery red eyes pierce your deep blue ones and he smiles kindly at your pathetic face and you just stare at him, wondering what he's going to do next.

He finally removes his hands from yours after a long moment and you follow them, anticipating that he's going to say something, _Now, why are you crying?_  He sees the surprised look on your face, so he reaches up and wipes the now obvious tear from your cheek and shows it to you. He then wipes his hand on his trunks. You draw your eyes back up to his and nearly get lost in the sight.

Decisively tearing your eyes away from his and peering down at your horribly scarred wrists you say, "I can't go to the river."

 _Why not?_  you watch his hands say.

"I-I can't," you break out a strained chuckle, "It's stupid really." You feel another tear slide down your face and Dave wipes that one away, too.

This time with his lips.

 _John_ , he sighs with a large exhale, _how many times have I told you that when it comes to you there is no 'stupid, 'dumb,' or anything in between._  He forces you to look him in the eyes and then lifts his hands higher so that you can see him sign, _especially not with me_ , without breaking eye contact. You can't help but smile at his words, Now tell me what's wrong.

Your smile fades to a flat line and you huff out a sigh, "Okay," your hand reaches out for a random t-shirt from your case and you fiddle with the sleeve, refusing to look at him, "I can't find my board shirt."

You feel his hand cup your cheek and force your to look at him. Another tear slides down your face as you look at him pleadingly, hoping that he'll be able to sympathize with you. He leans in close to you and you can feel his light breath caressing your face lightly and his mouth hovers over your lips. You find yourself torn on whether or not you want to meet his lips or not. You do want to kiss him, but you don't really know if-

And he decides for you.

His lips are on yours before you even have the chance to finish your thought and you are so glad that this is happening. His lips are surprisingly soft; always, surprisingly soft. They seem to move in complete coordination with yours, each gentle movement sending sparks through your nervous system, making you do things that your brain doesn't process beforehand. For instance, moving your hands up to his neck and pulling him harder against you. He huffs out a breath through his nose, his equivalent of a grunt, and kisses you harder. You moan into the kiss and start to move your lips against his more frantically. He moves his hands to your back and starts kneading your muscles; a shiver travels up your spine and you hold him tighter to you. One of his hands move up to your neck and holds you tighter to him and the other travels lower on you before hovering over your backside. He then gently squeezes and you have to break away from the kiss so that you can get a decent breath after a rather wanton moan. His lips don't seem to want to leave yours, but he cuts his losses and moves his lips down to your jaw and nips you, sending a jolt through you. But he doesn't stop there. He moves farther down, leaving small marks as he goes, until his head is settled into the crevice the joins your neck and shoulder. You're breathing roughly and you notice that you aren't doing anything so you are about to act on this problem, but he suddenly slows down until he's merely placing chaste kisses along your neck. He works his way back up to your lips and places one more chaste kiss on your lips before completely pulling away.

 _You're right_ , he signs, no trace of the kissing apparent on his face, _It is stupid_ , This snaps you out of your light, kiss-induced daze.

"What?" surprised confusion replaces bliss in your voice.

He sighs and rolls his eyes at you, _Your body is not something to be ashamed of._  He takes your hand and places it over your chest, right where the horrid scars are, _This is not who you are. And I don't care how long it take to convince you how beautiful a person you are_. He kisses your nose, _I_  will  _succeed_. He smiles at you kindly with love in his eyes and you can't help but smile back, completely wrapped up in the moment.

"I still can't go down there," you state after what you deem an appropriate amount of eye-gazing. He looks slightly downcast, so you add, "I believe you. I know I'll be able to get past this, but I'm not there yet," you gulp uncomfortably, "So I'll stay here and you go down and hang out with Rose and Jade. You might want to hurry, though, their plan of attack is probably almost complete and you don't want to-" he covers your mouth with his hand. He leaves it there until you nod, indicating that you've stopped speaking.

 _I'm not just going to leave you up here by yourself,_  he seems almost hesitant.

You know it's most definitely irrational, but you become defensive despite your wishes, "What's that supposed to mean?" you don't let him interrupt you, even though your brain is telling you to stop. this. now, "Do you think I'm going to relapse or something?" You can see his hands moving, vainly attempting to catch your attention, "I can do just fine on my own, Dave."

He takes your hand in his and presses the mixture to his face. You feel his breath gently caress your fingers and his lips press lightly to your knuckles. He then does something he hasn't done since before you learned ASL. He mouths, "Because I love you," with his chin resting on your joined hands.

You feel rather befuddled by this as he detaches his hands from yours, clearly seeing your emotions plastered to your face, _I know you can handle yourself just fine, John. That's not it at all. I just don't want you to be alone anymore. I've been alone; you've been alone. But now we both have each other so I really don't see why it would be appropriate to leave you by yourself when I personally know how lonely it can get._  He pats your leg, _so its because I love and care about you that I don't want to leave you by yourself. Not because I don't trust you to do the right thing._

You automatically feel guilty for assuming the worst of the person who cares so much about you. You just wish you could erase this last moment and start over again. You attempt to inform him of this, but he cuts you off, _There's nothing for you to apologize for._  You smile and nod at him, settling comfortably onto your elbows.  _Now there's a couple options for the two of us here._   _We could either stay up here and,_  his hands hesitate, _think of something to do. Or we could go down to the river with Jade and Rose, shirt or no._

You tense up with the prospect of going down to the river. There were many things that could go horribly wrong if you were to go down to the water without your shirt. You could be ridiculed by passersby or even Rose and Jade themselves. You could also suffer an overwhelming panic attack before you even made it down to the water's edge and die of a heart attack.

Wow, when did you become so melodramatic?

 _I'd be with you the whole time_ , he signs to you. You know he's right. You know for a fact that whenever, and you mean whenever, Dave is with you, everything seems to be ten times better. No matter what the issues are with your dad, no matter what the kids at school are doing, Dave is always there to pick up your pieces and put you back together again. But you also know that this is completely your decision and that if you decide you're not ready, Dave wouldn't pressure you. You make you're decision.

You grin slightly and nod, "Alright," you say, "I'll go."

And the beaming smile on Dave's face is enough to let you know that you made the right choice.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this should be a pretty quick thing. This is pre-written, so I will attempt to update this once a day unless something crazy happens. It's not terribly long, so time shouldn't really be an issue here. This is also the first fic in a series, so be sure to pay attention to what you read! 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> -AJ3


End file.
